It's no secret that Taylor Swift is rerecording her musical back catalogue, but today she announced the first of her rerecorded singles is landing this week.
The "Taylor's Version" of her 2009 hit Love Story is set to drop on Friday, just in time for Valentine's Day. The rerecord of the entire Fearless album will be available on April 9.
"I'm thrilled to tell you that my new version of Fearless (Taylor's Version) is done and will be with you soon. It has 26 songs including six never before released songs from the vault. Love Story (Taylor's Version) will be out tonight," the singer, 31, announced in a tweet, linking to her website where fans can pre-order the music.
I’m thrilled to tell you that my new version of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is done and will be with you soon. It has 26 songs including 6 never before released songs from the vault. Love Story (Taylor’s Version) will be out tonight. Pre-order now at https://t.co/NqBDS6cGFl 💛💛 pic.twitter.com/Vjyy2gA72O
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 11, 2021
The Folklore singer has been rerecording her first six albums – Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017) – since November 2020. It was during that month the singer's masters, as they are known in the music industry, were sold by talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine to investment fund Shamrock Holdings for more than $300 million.
At the time, Swift said: "This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge."
Swift vs Braun: a brief history
Back in 2019, Swift became entangled in a very public dispute with Braun and Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta, when the talent manager acquired the master recordings of her back catalogue from her former record label.
She said at the time that she had been trying to buy them back for years and described Braun as an "incessant, manipulative bully".
"Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it,” Swift said in a lengthy Tumblr post in July 2019.
Since, Swift has said Braun would only sell them to her if she signed an "ironclad NDA".
Swift is rerecording her music to encourage fans to listen to the versions she owns, in a bid to stop Braun profiting from play of her older music. Based on Fearless and Love Story, the rerecorded songs will be clearly labelled "Taylor's Version" in the title.
Since Braun bought Swift's first six albums, she has released three more, Lover (2019), Folklore (2020) and Evermore (2020), which he has no rights to.
