{"id":711,"date":"2021-04-19T14:20:57","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T14:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/?p=711"},"modified":"2021-04-19T14:20:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T14:20:58","slug":"taylors-version-taking-back-the-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/2021\/04\/19\/taylors-version-taking-back-the-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor&#8217;s Version: Taking Back the Music"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On Sunday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/news\/9558306\/taylor-swift-fearless-taylors-version-tops-billboard-200\/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social\">Billboard announced<\/a> that Taylor Swift\u2019s re-recorded album, <em>Fearless (2008)<\/em> reached number on the Billboard 200 charts after it\u2019s initial re-release on April 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in February 2021, Swift announced the official release date of her re-recorded album, <em>Fearless (Taylor\u2019s Version) <\/em>along with dropping her re-recorded single <em>Love Story <\/em>24 hours after the announcement. The evening before the album launch date, Swift released teasers of re-recorded songs like <em>You Belong with Me <\/em>via <a href=\"https:\/\/vm.tiktok.com\/ZMe9rawae\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TikToks that musicians Conan Gray and Olivia Rodrigo created<\/a>. Swift has affectionately referred to Gray and Rodrigo as her children in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her album release was preluded by her dropping a new single, <em>Mr. Perfectly Fine, <\/em>24 hours prior to the release of the album. The single was one of six new songs that Swift had written when <em>Fearless <\/em>was first recorded back in 2008 but had not been released before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Swift first announced her intention to re-record her initial six albums back in 2019, when her former record label, Big Machine Records, and its holdings \u2013 including the masters versions of Swift\u2019s songs from her first six albums\u2014were sold to Scooter Braun. Swift expressed her disappointment that Braun owned the original versions of her music in<a href=\"https:\/\/taylorswift.tumblr.com\/post\/185958366550\/for-years-i-asked-pleaded-for-a-chance-to-own-my\"> a Tumblr post in 2019<\/a>, claiming that he had manipulatively bullied her for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src='https:\/\/cdn.knightlab.com\/libs\/timeline3\/latest\/embed\/index.html?source=1-ZcjI_yNgg8-jKx6ZSpLuSDdeCwYtn4r4VUR_6s41HQ&#038;font=Default&#038;lang=en&#038;initial_zoom=2&#038;height=650' width='100%' height='650' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>Without the opportunity to hold the masters rights to her original songs from her first six albums, Swift opted to instead re-record her music and re-release them. As a songwriter on her albums, she has the right to re-record her albums once her contract with Big Machine Records ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Swift\u2019s most recent four albums \u2013 <em>Lover, Folklore, Evermore, and Fearless (Taylor\u2019s Version) \u2013 <\/em>are currently the only albums that Swift has full masters rights of, which was something that was guaranteed to Swift <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/taylorswift13\/status\/1225465572588171264\">when she signed a new contract with Universal Music Group in 2018.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Taylor Swift&#8217;s 30 Most Listened-To Songs on her most recent albums<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-bar-chart-race\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5897824\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Data collected from Spotify on April 18, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take the quiz below to find out which Taylor Swift album best suits your personality!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"involveme_embed\" data-project=\"which-taylor-swift-album-are-you\">\n<script src=\"https:\/\/emma-moore.involve.me\/embed\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday, Billboard announced that Taylor Swift\u2019s re-recorded album, Fearless (2008) reached number on the Billboard 200 charts after it\u2019s initial re-release on April 9. Back in February 2021, Swift announced the official release date of her re-recorded album, Fearless (Taylor\u2019s Version) along with dropping her re-recorded single Love Story 24 hours after the announcement. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}