1989 (Taylor’s Version)

A shedding of her Nashville country roots for New York City synthpop, the release of 1989 in 2014 ushered in a rebirth of Taylor Swift as a global pop icon, and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is her second coming. On October 27, Taylor Swift released the re-recording of 1989 with three wildly successful re-recorded albums already under her belt on the heels of the first North American leg of the cultural phenomenon of the Eras Tour. With Swift somehow even more on top of the world than she was during the release of the original album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is Swift’s victory lap, a celebration with her devoted followers for the pop Bible, which first catapulted her to international superstardom.

Welcoming us back to New York, Swift plunges us into all too familiar soundscapes from almost a decade ago. As if peering back into an old Polaroid picture, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) unquestionably preserves the genetic makeup of its original version. In accordance with her commitment to sonic continuity in her re-recording project, the sound of the re-recorded tracks remains almost identical, only enhanced by her matured vocals. However, some details in the production of a select few re-recorded songs hindered their star quality: the bass strums during the beginning of “Style” were missing the original’s electrifying verve, and the “ah’s” in “New Romantics” lost some of its original’s hopeful ardour. 

Along with the re-recording of songs featured on the 2014 album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) features five “From the Vault” tracks, songs written during the 1989 era that were never previously released. Each track harkens back to 2014 in all its glory, but each adopts remnants of Swift’s latest original album release, Midnights, in its twinkly production.

When the vault tracks were revealed after Swift sent her fans on a wild treasure hunt on a Google puzzle-solving game, the track “Slut!” was expected to be a satirical pop anthem on the media scrutiny over Swift’s relationships à la “Blank Space.” However, the actual track is more understated, cloudy in its softness but also its subtle sombre undertones. Its intimate lyrics could easily be in an edit you might find on your early 2010s Tumblr dash (“Flamingo pink, Sunrise Boulevard/Clink, clink, being this young is art”). While acknowledging the double standards of the media when it depicts her as a serial dater while her lover comes out unscathed (“Love thorns all over this rose/I’ll pay the price you won’t”), she expresses her hopefulness that she’ll still find love (“And if they call me a slut/You know it might be worth it for once”).

“Say Don’t Go” has the delightfully echoey chorus of a HAIM song, pleading with her ex-lover who’s just left her. “I said ‘I love you’/You say nothing back,” she shrieks during the bridge, the crown jewel of almost every Taylor Swift song. “Now That We Don’t Talk” features another addictively catchy chorus, highlighting Swift’s whispery falsetto as she recounts the fallout after a breakup. In the track, she dishes out a few playfully scathing remarks: “I don’t have to pretend I like acid rock/Or that I’d like to be on a mega yacht/With important men who think important thoughts.”

“Suburban Legends” is a detour from the metropolitan cities and the sandy summer beaches of the 1989 aesthetic, visiting the suburbia she left behind in her early country albums with a new perspective. Reminiscent of tracks from her other albums,“‘tis the damn season” and “Midnight Rain,” “Suburban Legends” looks back on what could’ve been in a high school relationship after the narrator chose to follow her ambitions instead: “I had the fantasy that maybe our mismatched star signs/Would surprise the whole school/When I ended up back at our class reunion/Walkin’ in with you.” This underrated track (or as underrated as a Taylor Swift song can be) is a standout, my current favourite of all the vault tracks.

The fan favourite of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is undeniably the exhilarating ride of the closing vault track: “Is It Over Now?” Swift references the accident in “Out of the Woods” (“When you lost control/Red blood, white snow”)  and infidelity in the relationship only briefly mentioned in “Style” (“And did you think I didn’t see you?/There were flashing lights/At least I had the decency/To keep my nights out of sight”), expanding the stories of her personal life fans can only take a glimpse at through interweaving specific lyrics and blurry paparazzi photographs passed around the fandom like folklore. The song strings together a deluge of jaded insults (“You dream of my mouth before it called you a lying traitor/You search in every model bed for something greater, baby”) and hopeless pleas (“Oh, Lord, I think about jumpin’/Off of very tall somethings/Just to see you come runnin’”) in the endearing way that only Taylor Swift can.

1989 was named after the year Taylor Swift was born, signalling her rebirth as an artist. In a massive career risk, Swift traded her Tennessee hometown for Manhattan apartments, country acoustic for electric guitar, and American Sweetheart naivete for a winking self-knowingness–proving her ability to evolve, which solidified her longevity in the music industry. Nine years later, recording 1989 once more in an effort to take back ownership of her albums, Swift is reborn again. As we take a walk down memory lane and revisit the Manhattan streets of 1989, Swift once again reminds us: “The lights are so bright, but they never blind me.” And in the face of her fortitude and her ever-growing devoted fanbase, they never will.