By Kelsey Purcell, Staff Writer
Taylor Swift released her own version of her hit single “Love Story” on Feb. 11.
Swift announced that she has finished re-recording her “Fearless” album and has hinted that “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” will be released on April 9, along with six never before released songs. Some other hit songs on the album include “You Belong with Me,” “Fifteen” and “Fearless.”
The “Taylor’s Version” of “Love Story” is almost identical to the original track. Both versions are the exact same length, three minutes and fifty-six seconds long. The song cover of the new version is also similar to the original “Fearless” cover. Swift is facing in the opposite direction in the new photo, but she is striking a similar pose.
The old music video illustrates the story that the song narrates — a love story similar to Romeo and Juliet. A lyric video to “Taylor’s Version” was released that takes a trip down memory lane and includes old photos and videos of her with fans while she was on tour.
On her Instagram, Swift expressed that “Artists should own their work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work.”
She says that some of the songs that almost made it onto the original “Fearless” album were not included because there could not be too many songs about break ups and only a certain number would fit on a physical CD.
Swift wrote, “This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me even more determined to re-record all of my music.”
She plans to remake the rest of her first six albums: “Taylor Swift,” (2006) “Speak Now,” (2010) “Red,” (2012) “1989” (2014) and “Reputation” (2017).
The original “Fearless” album was released on Nov. 11 2008 by Big Machine Records. Swift is re-recording her previous albums because she does not own the rights to those records. She left Big Machine Records after it was sold to Scooter Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings, along with the masters to her songs. The old recordings of her songs now belong to Braun, so Swift is not in control over how or where the music on her first six albums is used.
Swift wanted to buy the masters to her songs but the label head of Big Machine, Scott Borchetta, did not allow her to own the rights unless she would agree to make six new albums under the label.
Swift explained, “For years I asked, I pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead, I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, for every new one I turned in.”
Since leaving Big Machine Records, Swift has signed with Republic Records, a division of Universal Music Group, where she is in possession of the music she creates. Swift owns the rights to her albums “Lover,” (2019) “Folklore” (2020) and “Evermore” (2020).
