Drop everything now: Taylor Swift releases Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

This night is sparkling as at long last, Taylor Swift finally released her third rerecorded album Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) which also features six previously unreleased songs from the vault tracks.

“It’s an album I wrote alone about the whims, fantasies, heartaches, dramas and tragedies I lived out as a young woman between 18 and 20. I remember making tracklist after tracklist, obsessing over the right way to tell the story. I had to be ruthless with my choices, and I left behind some songs I am still unfailingly proud of now,” Taylor wrote in a statement announcing the album’s release.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

The rerecorded album follows Fearless and Red as Taylor attempts to take back control of her musical legacy when she was denied the opportunity to own her original masters by her record label Big Machine Records in 2019, a decision she detailed on a Tumblr post as the “worst case scenario” when news spread that the masters were sold to Scooter Braun:

“This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it. 

When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”

The updated album features six previously unreleased songs including  ‘Electric Touch’ featuring Fall Out Boy and ‘Castles Crumbling’ with Paramore’s Hayley Williams. The others ‘From the Vault’ tracks are titled ‘When Emma Falls in Love,’ ‘I Can See You’, ‘Foolish One’, and ‘Timeless’.

Listen to the album here: