Writer, Madeleine Hanson
After the past year and a half of releasing three albums, Taylor Swift has done it again. On November 12th, Taylor Swift released Red (Taylor’s Version). Taylor Swift has set out to re-record her first six albums in order to own her music and has now recorded 2/6 of them. After releasing Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in April she has now released Red (Taylor’s Version), which was originally released in 2012.
Although it was released almost a decade ago, this has not stopped fans from sending it to number 1. The album has all of the original 20 songs, plus 9 brand new songs that no one has heard before. She calls those songs “from the vault” songs. These are songs that were originally supposed to be on the album, however, the songs were taken off due to not fitting in with the album or she believed different songs were better. The vault song that has fans in a wreck is All Too Well (10-minute Version) (From the Vault) (Taylor’s Version), as it is the longer version of a fan favourite All Too Well. Along with the song itself, she also released a short film to go along with the song, starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien. Taylor described on the tonight show starring Jimmy Fallon, that if Sadie had said no, she might not have gone through with the Short Film, as she had never done anything like this before.
She held a premier for the Short Film at the AMC Theatre in Lincoln Square, New York. She was joined by Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien, with an audience of critics and fans. She performed All Too Well (10 minute version) live for some critics and fans for the first time.
The night she released the album, Taylor Swift was on The Late Late Show with Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with Seth Meyers. She explained why she was re-recording and the context of some of the songs. She explained how she wrote All Too Well (10-minute version) originally in 2011. She also described that no one had heard the vault songs, so she had the opportunity to collaborate with anybody she wanted to be a part of the album, like Phoebe Bridgers and Chris Stapleton. She explained that she wanted a young female artist to join her on the sing Nothing New (From the Vault), so she asked Phoebe Bridgers. After the Album was released, Taylor Swift performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. On the Monday following the release of the album, she also released a music video to the vault track I Bet You Think About Me Featuring Chris Stapleton. She wrote the music video with Blake Lively who also directed the music video. Following the weekend where she released 2 music videos and an entire album, on Thursday, November 17th Taylor Swift released the 2nd version of All Too Well (10 Minute Version) when she released All Too Well (Sad Girl Autumn Version) that she recorded at the Long Pond Studio in New York. After the release of Red (Taylor’s Version), which left fans speechless, it’s very exciting to imagine what she has planned for her next re-recorded albums. But nevertheless, as Taylor says in Fearless: “I don’t know how it gets better than this”.