Less than three months after Taylor Swift released her first fully rerecorded studio album, watch her begin again.
Following weeks of rampant speculation, the global pop superstar finally confirmed Friday that her next reimagined record will be 2012’s ‘Red’. On Instagram, Swift announced that ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ will debut November 19.
“I’ve always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed,” Swift wrote on Instagram.
“In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness. Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, that the next album I’ll be releasing is my version of Red.”
The highly anticipated announcement comes about two months after the prolific singer-songwriter released her rerecorded version of ‘Fearless’, which earned Swift her first Grammy nomination and win for album of the year in 2010.
In 2019, Swift vowed to rerecord her first six albums after music mogul Scooter Braun acquired them against her wishes. Rounding out her back catalogue that she intends to rerecord are ‘Taylor Swift’, ‘Speak Now’, ‘1989’ and ‘Reputation’.
‘Red’ earned the decorated musician her second Grammy nomination for album of the year — though it ended up losing to Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’. It also was nominated in 2014 for country album, while the track ‘Begin Again’ competed for country song.
“Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end,” Swift continued in Friday’s statement.
“Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past. Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.”
Originally released October 22, 2012, ‘Red’ debuted at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Billboard Country Albums charts and signaled Swift’s gradual crossover to the pop genre.
Standout numbers from the fan-favourite record include the title track, ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’, ‘All Too Well’, ‘Begin Again’, ‘Everything Has Changed’ and the certified birthday anthem, ‘22’.
“Sometimes you need to talk it over (over and over and over) for it to ever really be ... over,” Swift wrote. “Like your friend who calls you in the middle of the night going on and on about their ex, I just couldn’t stop writing.”
Like her version of ‘Fearless’, Swift’s modern take on ‘Red’ will unearth several as-yet-unreleased songs “from the vault,” that previously ended up on the cutting-room floor, resulting in a whopping 30 total tracks.
“And hey, one of them is even ten minutes long,” she added.
Two albums down, four to go.
