Taylor Swift’s pop debut album, 1989, has been rereleased and is still the epitome of pop music. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was released on October 27th, exactly nine years after the original album was released and despite its beach themed promotion, its energetic, city vibe is still very much there.
Like most things Taylor Swift does recently, the album broke many records, such as, breaking her own Spotify records for most-streamed album and most-streamed artist in a single day in Spotify history. It’s also the second biggest debut of the year, behind Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). The album’s sales also finally pushed Swift up to billionaire status.
The re-recording consists of the original 16 songs plus 5 new “From the Vault” songs, “Slut!”, “Say Don’t Go”, “Now That We Don’t Talk”, “Suburban Legends”, and “Is It Over Now?”, which will serve as the album’s single. Swift also released a deluxe version of the album which includes “Bad Blood” ft. Kendrick Lamar and the Target Tangerine Vinyl consists of a re-recorded version of “Sweeter Than Fiction”.
Of the 5 new songs, fans were most looking forward to the song “Slut!”. However, after the album was released, the songs “Is It Over Now?” and “Say Don’t Go” won the fans over with their catchy production and lyrics. Like many of Swift’s songs, she seems to be giving fans a glimpse into her relationships. In these new songs, fans have speculated Swift to be writing about her ex, Harry Styles, especially with the song, “It It Over Now?”. The lyrics seem to be alluding to having trouble letting go of a past relationship. Lines such as “blue dress on a boat” could be a reference to a viral 2013 picture of Swift on a boat in a blue dress after allegedly breaking up with Styles. Also, the line “When you lost control / Red blood, white snow” could be alluding to a snowmobile accident that Swift and Styles allegedly got into. She also references this accident in her song “Out of the Woods”.
Like many of her rerecordings, at first listen, the songs seem very different from the original versions. With the matured vocals and slight differences in production, the re-recordings are not going to sound like the original, and Swift has gotten pretty close with most of her songs. However, a few are definitely going to take some getting used to. Many fans have specifically pointed out how different the guitar sounds in the beginning of the song “Style” and how high pitched the vocals are at the beginning of “New Romantics”.
It’s obvious that the demand for these rerecording is not going anywhere. Swift now only has two more albums to re-record before she officially owns all of her music. Reputation, and her self-titled debut album. With the return of The Eras Tour next week, fans are anxiously awaiting to see what Swift has up her sleeve next.
