Red (Taylor’s Version) applies a brighter, deeper shade to a pop classic
Fans may see Red (Taylor’s Version) as a campaign on corporate bad guys, but the re-recording of their pop idol’s early records also stands as a daring artistic experiment.
Music
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Pop provocateur Taylor Swift unleashes the next chapter of the most audacious revenge plot in pop history with the release of Red (Taylor’s Version).
The powerful advocate for artists’ rights hatched her cunning campaign to make new “Taylor’s Version” editions of her first six albums in 2019.
That was when the rights to her master recordings were acquired by her music executive nemesis Scooter Braun, who has since on-sold them to a Disney family investment fund.
The goal of her historic power move was to encourage fans to buy and stream her new versions, and brands, filmmakers and social media platforms to licence those fresh takes, in an effort to devalue the original masters now owned by venture capitalists.
Fans rallied to the cause in April when the first instalment dropped, the reimagining of her 2008 mainstream pop breakthrough record Fearless.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) generated a whopping 50 million streams within 24 hours of its release, the biggest opening day for a new record on Spotify.
As much as fans may see this campaign as a Swifties V Corporate Bad Guys, the re-recording of their pop idol’s early records also stands as a daring artistic experiment.
Swift’s evolution as a singer and as an astute pop producer naturally casts the songs of Red, released when she was 22, in a new light.
But there’s so much more on offer than just the reworkings of the 20 original tracks.
Taylor’s Version is a whopping 30 songs equating to two hours of listening, with nine “From The Vault” tracks which didn’t appear on the 2012 release.
Those are the songs many fans and critics immediately scrolled to as the album arrived on streaming platforms at 4pm (AEDT) on Friday
She cleverly bridges the gap between the Swift of then and Swift of now, not only sonically but in the collaborators she has chosen.
Her old mate Ed Sheeran returns to remake their duet Everything Has Changed and returns for the “new” song Run, while her new friend in music, acclaimed indie singer songwriter Phoebe Bridgers appears on Nothing New.
The album’s thematic obsession with time – how long does it take to mend a broken heart, to let go of lost love, to defy the culturally-imposed shelf life of a young female pop star – are brought into sharp focus on her musical conversation with Bridgers on Nothing New and the existential angst of the lyric “Lord, what will become of me, Once I’ve lost my novelty?”
There’s no danger of that for Swift who remains one of the most switched-on players in pop.
The 10-minute version of All Too Well is as its epic as its length suggests, a wide-screen reimagining which gets its own short film (released on Saturday) co-starring Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink and Teen Wolf star Dylan O’Brien.
The other In The Vault tracks including Better Man, Babe and I Bet You Think About Me (featuring Chris Stapleton) are both winking nods to her country roots and companions to her indie folk reinvention on last year’s Folklore and Evermore records.
The new recordings of her old stuff are punchy, playful and steeped in the now; I Knew You Were Trouble (Taylor’s Version) would undoubtedly have been a smash had it debuted in 2021.
And that album’s other mega-single We Are Never Getting Back Together gets an Olivia Rodrigo-style punky do-over, closing the circle on the master and apprentice relationship the pop stars have enjoyed this year.
Red (Taylor’s Version) paints a brighter, deeper shade of Swift, and no doubt will prove success is the best revenge.
Originally published as Red (Taylor’s Version) applies a brighter, deeper shade to a pop classic
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