By Marisa Laviano – Staff Reporter

Taylor Swift released “Red (Taylor’s Version)” a re-recording of one of her most beloved albums “Red,” from 2012, on November 12. “Red” includes hits such as “22” “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” When Taylor Swift signed her record deal with Big Machine Records back in 2005, it gave the company the ownership to Taylor’s records which she tried buying back for years. When the company had been bought out by Scooter Braun in 2019 he had ended the opportunity for Taylor to buy her first six albums. This new deal also ended Taylor’s opportunity to earn any money from these albums. Meaning the money from every CD, vinyl, digital download, stream of those albums would go to Scooter, not Taylor. Taylor Swift took the opportunity in her contract allowing her to re-record each of her albums at least five years after their release, starting with her sophomore album “Fearless” back in April and now “Red.” Each song on the album has “(Taylor’s Version)” after the song title since she is now the owner of these songs. These re-recordings also feature not only the original tracks of the album, but nine “from the vault” songs that never made it to the original album. This also gave Taylor a chance to release some unreleased songs and also collaborate with other artists on them like she did with Phoebe Bridgers, Ed Sheeran, and Chris Stapleton on this album.

This album really has a little something for everyone with each song, which was also fitting since the original recording of this album was in between her albums “Speak Now” and “1989,” a super country album and a super pop album. This album’s theme is centered around a really tough break up, specifically the one between herself and Jake Gylenhaal, but still manages to express all these emotions in both fun upbeat songs and slow sad songs. Upon first listen, it’s almost hard to believe that the songs “We are Never Getting Back Together” and “All Too Well ” have the same theme. Even the songs “from the vault” express similar themes yet have a mix of genres: “Better Man” and “I Bet You Think About Me” being country while “Message In A Bottle” and “The Very First Night” being very pop. Some may find the diversity of the musical genres overwhelming, driving them away from the re-recorded album. Compared to the rest of her albums this is considered the least cohesive due to lots of tone changes. However this album is actually very cohesive since the themes of most songs on the album cover the same relationship. Even if some songs on the album may sound different from each other, that does not take away any value from the album. 

Many people think that the new re-recorded versions of these beloved songs will shy away from the original, but it is actually quite the opposite. Although it’s been a decade since the original recording of  “Red” came out, Taylor still manages to keep the songs the same. The most they might sound different is one word might be pronounced slightly different, but not enough for average listeners to freak out about how the song has changed. Although, one song in particular did shy away from the original. “Girl At Home (Taylor’s Version)” is a fun, upbeat, pop song, while the original “Girl At Home” was a cute acoustic song to end the original Deluxe version of “Red.” Most long time listeners of Taylor’s were quite shocked by this change, but there’s actually a reason behind it. The original version of “Girl At Home ” was actually a demo recording, and didn’t get to make it to its full potential. This song was lacking something in its original form, which is why it was ranked #192 on Rolling Stones article, “All 206 of Taylor Swift’s Songs, Ranked.” Now that Taylor’s is a part of Republic Records instead of Big Red Machine, she can do whatever she wants with her songs, and adding a pop production on this song helped give this song what it needed all along. 

This album features amazing lyrics written by Taylor Swift. Her unique lyricism really sets her apart from many other artists. One lyric that really stood out in this album was from the song “Nothing New feat. Phoebe Bridgers.” She sings, “How can a person know everything at eighteen, but nothing at twenty-two?” This song talks about how she was at a great point in her life until this relationship she was in tore down her mental health. At this point in the song you understand the tone of what she’s saying but once you get to this line you really start to understand the story she’s telling in the song, and empathize with it.  One thing that Taylor does a lot in her music is pay homage to her previous work in her lyrics. For example in one of the vault tracks, “Message In A Bottle” Taylor sings, “danced in the kitchen, chased me down through the hallway,” which is a reference to her song “All Too Well” which says “dancin’ round the kitchen in the refrigerator light.” Most of the songs and albums that Taylor has put out have been about her own life so these lyrics add to the narrative she is telling which is her life. 

“Red (Taylor’s Version)” also features a 10-minute version of her song “All Too Well” from the original album: “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)(Taylor’s Version)(From The Vault)” A long title for a long song. However, the song does not seem 10 minutes long. Taylor’s multiple different verses, choruses, bridges, and outro really keep listeners hooked all 10 minutes and 13 seconds of this song. The song focuses on her feelings throughout a relationship and it’s dreadful breakup. This song is so beautifully written, choosing lines from the song to talk about is a difficult task. “Time won’t fly it’s like I’m paralyzed by it, like to be my old self again but I’m still tryin’ find it,” expresses just how much pain she was in through this breakup, that time is standing still and can’t function through the pain. “You keep my old scarf from that very first week, cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me,” is another amazing line from this song that really illustrates the whole relationship while putting in such poetic lyrics and the pain in her voice makes it such a masterpiece. A line that may not be as poetic, but even more painful is “Not weepin’ in a party bathroom, some actress asking me what happened, you, that’s what happened, you.” The emphasis Taylor puts on the word “you” in this line outdoes the rest of the pain expressed in this song. It makes the listener feel absolutely heartbroken, even for a relationship that happened a decade ago. This song is an absolute masterpiece and has to be Taylor Swift’s best song. Many songs that are popular nowadays can’t even keep listeners’ attention for two minutes, but Taylor can keep them engaged for five times that because her songs have amazing lyrics, singing, beat, and production. 

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars