Music

Taylor Swift’s Next Re-recorded Album Will Be 2012’s ‘Red’

After releasing the re-recorded version of her 2008 album Fearless in April, Taylor Swift has set her sights on her fourth studio album, Red. The re-recorded — and greatly expanded — Taylor’s Version of that record is due out in November, Swift announced on Friday (June 18).

“Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past,” Swift shares on Instagram. “Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.”

Originally released on Oct. 22, 2012, via Big Machine Label Group, Swift’s original record label home, Red was Swift’s final not-explicitly-pop album. The now-seven-times-platinum project spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 — her third consecutive album to spend at least six weeks at the top of that chart, a feat never before accomplished by a woman. Red also received Album of the Year nominations at the ACM Awards, CMA Awards and Grammy Awards, as well as a Best Country Album Grammys nod.

Red contains seven singles: “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Begin Again,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “22,” “Red,” Everything Has Changed” and “The Last Time.” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” became Swift’s first all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper.

Red originally contained 16 songs, and a deluxe edition brought the tracklist to 22 songs, but Swift shares that Red (Taylor’s Version) “will be the first time you hear all 30 songs that were meant to go on Red.”

“Sometimes you need to talk it over (over and over and over) for it to ever really be … over. Like your friend who calls you in the middle of the night going on and on about their ex, I just couldn’t stop writing,” Swift says on Instagram.

“And hey, one of them is even 10 minutes long,” she adds. Although Swift did not outright say which song that is, it’s likely the original version of “All Too Well,” which has become something of a mythical creature among Swift’s biggest fans.

Red (Taylor’s Version) is due out on Nov. 19. Digital copies are available to pre-order now on Swift’s official website.

Swift is re-recording Red and her five other albums from her BMLG days following her split from the label — after the completion of her original record deal, she signed with Universal Music Group in 2018 — and a very public battle over her master recordings. BMLG is now owned by celebrity talent manager Scooter Braun, whom Swift says has been a bully to her over the years. She also says that she was not notified of the label’s sale ahead of time, and was never given a fair chance to acquire her masters or purchase the label itself.

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