Red (Taylor’s Version) lets us experience the magic all over again

PHOTO: Image via Republic

By Stella Maze,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

The sincere storytelling of Taylor Swift’s music that has kept her relevant for the past decade is perfectly embodied in the new rerecording of her 2012 album “Red”.

“Red (Taylor’s Version)” is the second rerecorded album she has released. The first was a rerecorded version of “Fearless”, originally recorded in 2008 and rereleased in 2021.

A couple of years ago, a lot of Swift’s music was bought off of her label without her initial knowledge. Without owning all of her own music, she was hindered from using these songs on television concerts or in advertisements and movies. Not to mention, the injustice in not feeling ownership over her own art.

The idea to rerecord the stolen records was her solution.

A rerelease of the 2012 record with additional songs, new featured artists, and production change, is like getting to relive the excitement of “Red” all over again but in a more visceral way.

Additionally, Swift’s voice has changed and matured since 2012, as well as the way her persona and storyline has shifted in tone.

“Nothing New”, the twenty-third song featuring singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, embodies the treatment of girls and women within a society that is continuously generating double standards to hold them against. It also explores how young women, especially in the performance industries, are thrown out and into fame, like objects.

The song’s multi-layered quality is part of what makes it so compelling. It is heart-breaking and clearly comes from the experience of the performer herself who is often treated only as a marketable product.

More importantly, it molds itself to the experiences of most young women all over the world in depicting how societal views dissect and objectify them.

Another re-recording, track number 19, “Girl at Home”, was originally folk-y and airy with a chorus that was accentuated by a swell of acoustic guitars.

However, the new version is a tinny, dub-step dance beat, the way Swift originally wanted it.

The transcendent push and pull between muffled and breaching synths is shocking in the best way and requires a vigorous headbang, if not a spontaneous dance party.

And of course, “All Too Well (Taylor’s version) (10 Minute Version)” (the only downside to this record may be the amount of parenthesis after song titles) is the extension to the already heartbreaking song that everyone desperately needed whether they knew it or not.

Part of the song’s magic is its duality of tone. It started as an early song in Swift’s career that came out after a painful relationship and at a time of relative insecurity.

Now, we get the complete story from start to finish sung with assurance and communal ownership.

With this new perspective, Swift and her fan base are able to relive her life through a more accepting and happier lens; a defining idea surrounding the whole concept of rerecording Swift’s music in the first place.