The songs on Fearless surge between hope and pain, bitterness and awe. The seconds-long “Hallelujah” in the bridge of “Change” sounded exalted on the earlier version here it sounds more like a sigh, somewhere between relief and remorse. There are micro-changes in inflection: “You ask me for my love and then you push me around,” she cries on “Tell Me Why,” the note a bit more strangled and snarling. Her choruses are a bit less breathy, and she glides into belting without sounding strained.
Most obviously changed is her voice, which has strengthened and deepened over the years. Most of the alterations to original songs are barely noticeable, besides an invigorating blast of fiddle on “Love Story” each song’s runtime remains either exactly the same or off by a single second. These versions are slightly more polished, like photos touched up on Instagram with a press of a button: the sound is brighter, the mix is clearer, each peal of guitar is sharper. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) presents a different puzzle: spotting the difference between the original and this almost-identical copy. What is to be gained from parsing the gap between remix, recitation, and reincarnation? Dissecting the Easter eggs tucked into Swift’s songs has always been part of the Taylor listening experience-decoding which lyric corresponds to which break-up, tracing the lineage of each biting remark. Instead of cosplaying a caricature of her 18-year-old self, we get present-day Taylor in conversation with the Taylor of the past with a wrenching intimacy. Starting with her second album is a deft choice her writing is stronger than on her 2006 self-titled debut, and Fearless contains some of her more iconic and commercially successful tracks.
With “new” versions of old albums, Swift seemed to ask her fans to accept the re-done albums as a new canon to replace the beloved decade-old records.įearless (Taylor’s Version) is the first of six of these planned “new” versions. So much of the relationship between pop star and fan revolves around the idea of “blessings,” with the generous artist bestowing gifts to her listeners. For listeners, however, the value proposition seemed less clear. This wasn’t simply a cynical IP grab with purely financial implications this was also a woman quite literally reclaiming her past selves. When Taylor Swift announced that she planned to re-record each of her albums to effectively take control of her masters and stick it to famed music manager Scooter Braun, the move was quintessential Taylor: strategic, savvy, and easily mapped onto an empowerment narrative.
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