The singer-songwriter, 31, on Friday dropped “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” a newly-recorded version of her second studio album.
Originally released when Swift was 18 and centered in country music, the 2021 version was bound to include some “Changes.” Her voice has matured, which works on tracks like “White Horse” and “Fearless” but feels odd when she sings about high school on “Fifteen”. For the most part, though, the album’s essence is the same and the tweaks are fun reminders for longtime fans of how Swift has developed as an artist through the years.
“Taylor’s Version”, as Swift is calling it, is a make-good on her promise to rerecord her music from before her “Lover” album. In late summer 2019, shortly after Scooter Braun’s purchase of her masters ignited a public battle between the two and renewed debate over music ownership, Swift announced her plan to rerecord her first six studio albums in an effort to own her work, saying “I just think that artists deserve to own their work, I just feel very passionately about that” on “Good Morning America.” She started doing so in late 2020 and “Fearless” is the first of her versions to be released.
The new release gives fans 27 tracks: All the songs from the original and platinum edition, six previously unreleased tracks from the vault and a bonus song. We’ve listened and found the biggest differences between 2008’s “Fearless” and 2021’s “Fearless (Taylor’s Version).”
“Mr. Perfectly Fine” (a surprise release Wednesday) gives us “Forever and Always” vibes, which is probably why it was initially left on the cutting room floor. This one is vintage sentimental Taylor at its finest (as is other vault song “You All Over Me,” released in March) and we can’t stop belting out “It takes everything in me just to get up each day / But it’s wonderful to see that you’re OK.” It also includes the line “casually cruel,” seemingly a precursor to her greatest bridge of all time in 2012’s “All Too Well”?
Keith Urban’s appearance on “That’s When” and “We Were Happy” is a nice homage to the Fearless-era, when Swift was the opening act on Urban’s 2009 Escape Together tour (the pair was also featured on Tim McGraw’s 2013 song “Highway Don’t Care.”) But we probably could have done without those two, along with other vault song “Bye Bye Baby,” which are pretty forgettable compared the rest of Swift’s storied discography.
Of the from-the-vault songs, four are new releases on Friday. The best is “Don’t You,” a slow bop that sonically could have ended up on her “1989” album but lyrically sounds like if the main character of “Folklore”s “The 1” ran into her ex before going to therapy.
A big question heading into the rerecords: Would Swift, a Pennsylvania native who has since moved into the pop and indie spheres revive the country twang she used in her earlier work?
The answer, we’re thrilled to confirm, is yes. It isn’t as noticeable as the original and Swift has a more mature and slightly wider vocal range than she did as a teen, but the emphasis on the “r” in “Fearless” and some long, drawn out “I”s and “Y”s undeniably mark a return of yee-haw Taylor.
From Publisher: USA TODAY
