Written By Aundrea Joy Levanza
Just four months after Taylor Swift’s release of evermore in December 2020, she thoroughly surprised fans and non-fans alike with her newly released and re-recorded studio album, Fearless (Taylor’s Version). In a previous announcement back in 2019, she shared that she would re-record her first six studio albums as a means of retaining ownership of her previous masters. This was mainly due to a dispute against Big Machine Records in their acquisition of the albums. Hence, the addition of “Taylor’s Version” to all the tracks in the re-record means that Swift purposely wanted this new record to replace the old version.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) comprises all the original nineteen tracks from the platinum edition of the 2008 record, with the 2010 single ‘Today Was a Fairytale’ and six additional ‘From the Vault’ tracks. ‘Love Story (Taylor’s Version)’ was the first track released in February 2021, and it immediately garnered attention from audiophiles and musicians alike. The song immediately topped the Billboard music charts. According to Swift, re-recording ‘Love Story’ was the most fun she’s had in the re-recording process since she felt like a different singer and she saw so many ways to possibly improve the song.
“Fearless was an album of magic and curiosity, the bliss and devastation of youth,” according to Swift’s letter on Twitter about the release of the album. Personally for the fans, Fearless has held a special place in their hearts since it reminded them of the angst of youth, innocence, and of first loves and heartbreaks. It’s an album that evoked so much emotions coming from a young girl just discovering her way into life; it’s also some form of reminder that love isn’t always magical and butterflies-in-your-stomach sweet as the movies depicted it to be. And because of these things, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) can definitely be perceived as the exceptional and phenomenal record. From the music quality, instrumentals, voice improvements, and additional tracks, this deserves to take the original record’s place.
What makes the newly released Fearless (Taylor’s version) stand out from the 2008 record is that now it’s just much more complete. “I’ve decided I want you to have the whole story, see the entire vivid picture, and let you into the entire dreamscape that is my Fearless album,” Taylor says in the same letter on Twitter. It’s a purely blissful experience, especially for the fans, to perceive the art form in its entirely complete and honest state with the artist’s best intentions in mind. That’s what Fearless (Taylor’s version) is about.
The simple addition of the Vault songs just made this version of Fearless the more superior one. The unreleased songs comprise a myriad of emotions to be experienced in love. It could have reminded its listeners of the lasting impacts of an old lover in ‘You All Over Me’, the frustration and bitterness for a playboy-type of man in ‘Mr. Perfectly Fine’, the remorse felt in falling out of love in ‘We Were Happy’, the sad but unavoidable aftermath of a breakup in ‘That’s When’, the pain of encountering an ex-lover in ‘Don’t You’, and a tragic farewell to an end of an important relationship in ‘Bye Bye Baby’. As Swift reveals, these six additional tracks were never released before and were written when she was between the age of 16 to 18.
It was a fascinating feat to determine the subtle differences between the 2008 record and the 2021 re-recording. Noting that Swift released the original album only when she was 18 years old, and now that she's 31, listeners expect her to sound older. But it’s not simply about this evident voice change—when you listen to the tracks much more closely—there’s just more substance to it than before. Her voice progressed to a more complete and richer tone than the original. Just listen to ‘Jump Then Fall’ and compare it to ‘Jump Then Fall (Taylor’s version)’. You’ll definitely hear the refined change of her voice—a sophisticated one with more emphasis and better enunciation on the lyrics. What makes this re-recording amazing as well is that it’s actually a very identical record—which is difficult to pull off according to some music experts. It truly shows how Swift and her team of sound engineers, mixers, and producers really did put a lot of keen attention to detail on this re-recording.
Listeners right back from 2008 literally grew up along with Swift’s music. And perhaps that was one of the main reasons why the album blew up pretty quickly in the music scene—the album was sentimental and nostalgic for both its creator and its listeners. Thirteen years have passed and it feels like it was just yesterday that fans were young girls trying to relate to the lyrics of ‘You Belong With Me,’ romanticizing the age of fifteen because of the ‘Fifteen’ track, or feeling like we’ve just been through the saddest betrayal in ‘Forever and Always’.
It’s from Fearless (Taylor’s version) that we realize that music has been one of the ways for people to cope through the tough times. It’s the temporary feeling of getting lost to the playlist of our childhood that helped her listeners find comfort. The nostalgia really played a huge part in the success of this wonderful re-recording. Taylor Swift reminds her loyal listeners that she’s still the same girl from Fearless, but she will always be capable of doing something more to surprise them.
Be Fearless and listen to the album down below!
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