Why Taylor Swift re-recorded her own album "Fearless"

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Shooting star Taylor Swift in November 2008

Photo: Damian Dovarganes / AP

How did she do it, is it really all new?

This question will probably occupy fans, music critics and probably lawyers for a long time to come.

This Friday, US pop singer Taylor Swift, 31, re-released the first of six albums from the early years of her career in a fully reproduced form.

"Fearless" was released in 2008, won the Grammy for Album of the Year and laid the foundation for Swift's rise to one of the most successful pop stars of the past decade by converting the still rather pure country sound of their debut into popular music that was compatible with the masses.

With more than 12 million copies sold worldwide, it is one of the musical bestsellers of the 21st century.

Hits like "Love Story", "You Belong With Me" or "Fifteen" not only shaped an adolescent generation of teenagers in the USA, they also showed the talent of the then 18-year-old singer as one of the best songwriters and pop for the first time - Storytellers of their generation.

In the ongoing battle for the publication rights to her music, which was released between 2008 and 2018 and has since been sold to an investment fund by Scooter Braun, manager of her former label Big Machine, Swift recently decided to simply re-record her successful albums - in the Hope that their fans will only stream their versions out of solidarity from now on.

Much more important, however: Swift can now handle future licensing requests for films, series or commercials itself again.

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It's an act of artistic self-empowerment that is largely unprecedented in pop history.

The ELO musician and producer Jeff Lynne also re-recorded old songs from his band, as did the rock band Def Leppard, in a dispute with Universal Music.

But such a perfect-looking one-to-one copy?

Because that's »Fearless (Taylor's Version)« in an amazing way, right down to the last short and cheeky laugh in the middle of »Hey Stephen«, which at the time seemed so nicely random and improvised.

She couldn't resist,

she couldn't help herself

, as the happy number says.

Every banjo chord, every fiddle, every production detail that has been slightly grayed out for over 13 years that calls for modernization: everything fits like 2008.

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Taylor Swift at the Golden Globes in January 2020

Photo: MARIO ANZUONI / REUTERS

So you can well imagine how Swift ultras and sound engineers will bend over these recordings and the originals in the coming days and weeks to meticulously compare, measure and analyze every detail, whether or not old master files have been used not a few

easter eggs

were hidden for the fans.

If you believe in Swift's willpower and artistic determination, you can confidently doubt it: Even her voice sounds so young and unformed again, as if she were 18 again and less experienced in singing and in life.

In a certain way, what she sang in her enthusiastic Backfisch hymn “Fifteen” comes true: “Wish you could go back / And tell yourself what you know now”.

Swift did just that - and didn't change a thing.

It must have been great fun, out of the superiority of the older ones, to make herself the mistress of her teenage self.

As it all could have sounded like, it was not just about a technically flawless copy, but about a re-imagination, one can imagine when listening to the six previously unreleased songs "from the vault", which are also on this new one Version are included.

“Mr.

Perfectly Fine ”, which is presumed to be about Swift's boyfriend at the time, Joe Jonas, the duet“ That's When ”with country star Keith Urban or“ You All Over Me ”(with Maren Morris) are not essential tracks, not nuggets, that were missing from the original publication.

But Swift sings it with its grown-up voice today and had it produced by Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, who were also responsible for the crystalline sound of their current albums "Folklore" and "Evermore".

So there is still an interesting conversation between the older, mellow Taylor Swift and her juvenile, more naive emotional world, in which one listens curiously for ironic undertones or subtle amusement.

And of course the bonus tracks offer added value so that you can buy the complete package of around two hours in "Taylor's version" again.

That is truly

fearless

.

And pretty clever.