Whether you call yourself a Swiftie or not, Taylor Swift’s latest re-release of a past album—Red (Taylor’s Version), which came out on Friday, November 12—is a clear triumph both musically and in terms of the artist’s broader mission and path.
In 2019, the now thirty-one year old artist announced that she would be re-recording and re-releasing her first six albums after a dispute with her former record label, Big Machine Records. The label had denied her ownership of those albums’ masters, which led to a drawn-out, acrimonious, and very public fallout with Big Machine’s founder Scott Borchetta and now-label-owner Scooter Braun. In re-recording her music, Swift gains creative and financial control over the past music she released under Big Machine.
Red, which originally came out in 2012, is a tumultuous and diverse album drawing on sub-genres from arena rock to country-inflected indie to dance-pop. Swift has said the album’s varied style mimics the emotions felt over the course of a heartbreak. In the words of her hit single “22,” the album represents being “happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time.”
The November re-release of the album added fourteen new tracks, from songs Swift wrote but never released for the album (her “From the Vault” songs) to a spoken note reflecting on Red’s artistic intent. It’s a behemoth of a listener—and every single track finds its place. In sum, the album is a no-skip.
It’s also an intensely emotional listen for her long-time fans, something I can say with confidence having grown up listening to Swift’s music since age eleven.
Red (Taylor’s Version) carries particular symbolic weight for me: The original came out when I was freshly fourteen. At the time, I didn’t really listen to it. I was too busy rebelling against mainstream pop in a move that, in retrospect, was clearly about trying to differentiate myself from the “other girls.” I was trying to find a full-fledged identity that I hoped would be more remote, more confident, and “cooler” than the intense, confusing feelings I had all the time but didn’t know simply came with the territory of being a teenage girl. In doing so, I disavowed Swift’s music as a guilty pleasure.
When I was sixteen—far down the “indie” path of knee socks, choker necklaces, and the Arctic Monkeys—an unabashed Swiftie friend played me “All Too Well,” Red’s fan-favourite slow-burn ballad. I loved it. I didn’t really understand or relate to it, but the bridge’s indictment of a man (said to be actor Jake Gyllenhaal) who breaks Swift’s heart, “so casually cruel in the name of being honest,” was an example of the vivid storytelling Swift’s fans have loved her for since she started releasing music in 2004.
Little by little (and under the influence of more confident friends), I became a Taylor Swift fan again. By the time she released folklore during the summer of 2020, I was a full-blown Swiftian scholar—I still joke that I’ll find a way to write a PhD thesis about her life and work.
But despite her continuous and prolific creativity, it’s the artist’s re-releases (which began with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) last spring) that really showcase how far her music has come and how much it means to a generation of young women.
Red (Taylor’s Version) shows that in spades. She revisits this diverse swath of old songs with a more mature voice, lusher instrumentals, and new features by artists whose fan bases consist significantly of Swift’s now-adult long-time fans (yes, I mean Phoebe Bridgers). In doing so and in promoting the album, the artist has been unabashedly joyful. She said of the new ten-minute-version of “All Too Well,” “It was about something very personal to me. It was very hard to perform it live. Now for me, honestly, this song is 100 percent about us and for you.”
In the Bridgers feature “Nothing New,” the musicians sing, “How can a person know everything at eighteen but nothing at twenty-two?” This summarizes the album’s impact on the fans who grew up alongside Swift: Red’s re-release draws on nostalgia and memory, bringing us back to how we felt listening to those songs for the first time. It’s a genuinely healing process: We’ve all aged and grown for better or for worse—but probably for better. As with “All Too Well,” this whole album is for us.
Since Red’s first 2012 release, Swift’s fans have finished degrees, experienced heartbreak(s), found happiness(es), moved away from their families, and experienced significant personal change and growth. On a broader scale, the artist is reclaiming her music as fans are simultaneously reclaiming our experiences. Red (Taylor’s Version) allots us a specific space for self-reflection, along with just being excellent music.
That said, the crux of the album remains: If Jake Gyllenhaal calls you to dump you, you can always turn it into a famous ten-minute ballad.