Rediscovering ‘Red’: What you need to know about Taylor Swift’s next re-record

By
Ma. Alena O. Castillo
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June 22, 2021 - 4:09 PM
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Two months after the release of "Fearless (Taylor's Version)," International superstar Taylor Swift announced is set to drop the re-recorded version of her fourth studio album "Red" on Nov. 19. (Instagram/@taylorswift)

After much fan speculation, Taylor Swift is set to release the re-recorded version of her fourth studio album Red on November 19 this year.

In a long note posted on her social media accounts on Friday (US time), Swift said she was heartbroken during the album’s conception in 2012.

“I’ve always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed. Time skips backwards and forwards fleetingly. The heartbroken might go through thousands of micro-emotions a day trying to figure out how to get through it without picking up the phone to hear that old familiar voice,” Swift wrote.

“In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness. Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, that the next album I’ll be releasing is my version of Red,” she added.

“Musically and lyrically,” Taylor said that “Red” “resembled a heartbroken person.”

“It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past,” Taylor said.

“And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way,” she continued.

“Sometimes you need to talk it over (over and over and over) for it to ever really be… over. Like your friend who calls you in the middle of the night going on and on about their ex, I just couldn’t stop writing,” the award-winning artist furthered.

“Red (Taylor’s Version)”, the pop superstar’s second redo album, will feature 30 songs that were “meant to go on Red, ” including a ten-minute song, which she accessorized with an emoji of a cozy red scarf.

Paint the town ‘Red’

Following her announcement, Swift and several tracks from “Red” trended on Twitter.

Some fans posted memes while awaiting the release.

Others shared their speculations about the date of the release of the re-recorded album.

Other fans also swiftly speculated that there will be a release of the highly anticipated extended version of “All Too Well.” The song was linked to her brief romance with actor Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010.

The blockbuster 2012 album “Red” housed some of Taylor’s hit singles, including “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “22” and “Everything Has Changed” with Ed Sheeran. The standard edition of the original Red contains 16 songs, while the deluxe edition consists of 22 songs.

In April 2021, Swift dropped “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” which consists of 26 tracks: All the 13 songs from the original and six from the record’s platinum version and six previously unreleased tracks from the vault.

READ: #FlashbackFriday: Taylor Swift’s rerecorded ‘Fearless’ album takes fans on nostalgia trip

In the same month, it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Regaining ownership

Swift confirmed her plans to re-record her first six albums namely Taylor Swift”, “Fearless”, “Speak Now”, “Red”, “1989”, and “Reputation” in August 2019 on “Good Morning America.”

Taylor announced a year after that she has started redoing her original music after “actively trying to regain ownership.”

The issue stems from the long-running dispute with Scooter Braun, who bought her former record label, Big Machine Label Group through his company Ithaca Holdings and acquired Taylor’s master recordings reported to be worth 300 million dollars, according to Variety.

“For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead, I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in,” Taylor wrote in a 2019 post on her Tumblr page.

“I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums,” she added.

In November 2018, Swift signed a record deal with Republic Records and Universal Music Group, leaving Big Machine Records where she stayed since she was 15.

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