Taylor Swift Gave Us A Peek At Her Re-Recordings in the Most 2020 Way
By: Sam Caccamise
Tags: Celebrity, Music, Pop Culture, Entertainment

Photo by Raphael Lovaski on Unsplash

Taylor Swift Gave Us A Peek At Her Re-Recordings in the Most 2020 Way

If you’re anything like me who happened to be in the top 0.5% of Taylor Swift’s Spotify listeners this year, you have been not-so-patiently awaiting the re-release of her first five masters. Last Wednesday, Swift gave us the first taste of what we’ve been waiting for in the most 2020 way ever.

This year Miss Swift has caught us by surprise like never before — and that’s saying a lot — from her surprise drop of the folklore album to her newest documentary, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (currently streaming on Disney+).

Swift posted to her Instagram story early Wednesday morning, making a very clear note that her re-recordings are not yet complete, but that she did have a special sneak peek for us, thanks to her good friend Ryan Reynolds. Swift wrote:

“OK, so while my new re-records are NOT done, my friend @VancityReynolds asked me if he could use a snippet of one for a LOLsome commercial he wrote.”

Reynolds has been writing commercial scripts (who knew?) and had the perfect vision for the re-recording of “Love Story” from Swift’s second album, Fearless. The advertisement for Match stars Reynolds as satan, giving us a glimpse of his whirlwind romance with 2020 — featuring a dumpster fire and all — and how perfect it was.

For all of our sakes, let’s just hope that satan doesn’t move on to 2021 if he and 2020 don’t make it for the long haul. Just saying.

Swift is re-recording her first five masters as a result of their sale to Big Machine Records, by Scooter Braun, against her wishes. The past three years have been characterized by multiple public feuds between the two without resolution.

This battle has been marked by the repeated attempts of Braun to prevent Swift from profiting off of her own music, yes, but also halting her ability to perform her own music at events like the 2019 American Music Awards, where Swift received the award for Artist of the Decade.

Photo by Chaz McGregor on Unsplash

This glimpse of Swift’s re-recordings comes just weeks after Swift received a letter from a private equity company a few weeks back, alerting her that her music had in-fact been re-sold (yes, again) for $300 million; A gift that just keeps giving for Braun.

The company, Shamrock Holdings, extended an olive branch to Swift after being forced to keep the transaction hush, hush by Braun himself. Unfortunately, Scooter will continue to profit off of this arrangement, making it “a non-starter for me” said Swift in a letter directly to fans via Twitter.

Lucky for us, Swift’s contract allowed her the right to re-record her music beginning in November 2020 — Granting her full creative rights to the re-mastered versions. And she’s been dropping hint after hint about just how busy she is doing just that. This allows Swift to use her music in any way she sees fit; including Match commercials that hit a bit too close to home in 2020. A pretty spectacular way to end a less-than-favorable year, if you ask me.

The timid Taylor Swift we once knew is gone, and I think there are a few lessons we could all learn from this matured version of herself as we step into the new year — Goodbye, to the days of accepting less than you deserve and hello, to a better-than-ever era of TS.