that one girl who reviews

Taylor Swift, after having a momentous run on her U.S. leg of “The Eras Tour,” announced her second album of the year and 14th album overall, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” at her final stop in Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium. 

The announcement comes just a month after Swift dropped her re-recorded version of “Speak Now.”

The highly anticipated re-recording of the infamous “1989” which was released in 2014, has an additional five songs “From the Vault” that Swift describes as “insane” and will be released exactly nine years after the original on October 27.

After revealing in 2020 that her contract allows her to legally re-record her first six albums, Swift released “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” in April 2021, “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in November 2021 and “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” in July 2023. She is now officially halfway through her re-recordings with only “Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version)” and “reputation (Taylor’s Version)” yet to be announced. 

While the goal for Swift was to own her masters, she has achieved something much bigger with her re-recording process by paving the way for younger artists through owning and redefining her artistry. 

Spending the first half of her career at Big Machine Records, Swift parted ways with the label in November 2018, striking a new deal with Republic Records who she has been with since. 

Swift’s masters had been sold to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in 2019 and then sold again in October 2020 to Shamrock Capital, with Braun originally planning to sell back to Swift, only to have the deal fall through after allegedly expecting Swift to sign “an ironclad NDA” that Swift said would require her to “​​never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive, before [they] could even look at the financial records of BMLG.”

Swift’s re-recordings essentially decrease the value of her masters through streaming and consumption. With her ever-growing fanbase and her wildly successful tour, “Taylor’s Versions” have begun to outstream the original versions.

The original songs also may not be used in advertisements or visual media without permission from Swift herself, therefore allowing her to grant usage of her new versions to anyone interested in using her work in theirs. 

Swift has already released two songs from “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” using this technique, the first being “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version)” in September 2021 for a viral TikTok trend and “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” in May 2022 for Amazon series “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” which also debuted a snippet of “Delicate (Taylor’s Version)” from her yet-to-be-announced re-recording of her sixth studio album, “reputation.” 

While fans eagerly await “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” Swift will embark on her international leg of “The Eras Tour,” starting with Mexico City on August 24.