Taylor Swift: Red (Taylor’s Version) review

By Maddi Dolan

I first listened to Red in my turquoise painted bedroom in the fall of 2012. I was twelve-years-old, having never experienced a heartbreak like the one Taylor Swift wrote about in her songs, yet I still passionately sang along to all 16 songs, often ugly crying in the process. Now at 21-years-old, well seasoned in the heartbreak department, I can finally appreciate (and unfortunately relate to) Swift's re-recorded Red album.

On Nov. 12, Swift released Red (Taylor’s Version), which is the second re-recorded album she delivered to fans this year, following Fearless (Taylor’s Version), which was released in April. This new version of Red features all 30 songs that were originally written for the album, including a ten-minute version of “All Too Well.” The songs that never made it onto the original album are what Swift calls songs “from the vault.”

Red is redone in a new yet oh-so-familiar way. Both albums are very similar, but Swift's voice has matured over the past decade and you can clearly hear that in her music. Other than that, the songs that were originally released on Red are almost identical to the new versions. This was Swift’s exact intention.

Last year, Swift took to Twitter to share with fans the details about her ongoing legal battle with ex-manager, Scooter Braum. Braum sold the master rights to her first six albums without telling her. This denied her rights to perform her own music. (Crazy right?!)

To reclaim the rights to both share and profit from her music, she took action, making ambitious plans to re-record all six of her oldest albums. This way, her older music stays almost exactly the same, but becomes hers entirely. It truly is an empowering story - this journey she is on reclaiming what is rightfully hers.

Although most T-Swift fans hate him (with good reason), we can sort of thank Scooter Braun for one thing at least: giving Swift a reason to re-record what could arguably be the best breakup album of the 2010’s. Without Braun, we may never have been blessed with her vaulted tracks.

Out of the 30 songs on the album, her vaulted track “Better Man” is my absolute favorite. Swift originally wrote the song for the band Little Big Town, which was released on their eighth album in 2016. Although I love Little Big Town’s version of the song, I will simply never listen to it again (yikes, sorry LBT.) Listening to Taylors version, knowing those are her true emotions, gives it an authenticity that I connect to. “Better Man” is one of her songs that I shamelessly play on repeat and cry to every time I'm in my car; it’s my own personal therapy session.

“I Almost Do,” which was on the original album release back in 2012, is another tear jerking song that I have been playing on repeat since Nov. 12. I had nearly forgotten this song existed until the re-release, but it now lives rent free in my mind almost a decade later. As cheesy as it sounds, Taylor Swift's music came back into my life at a time I truly needed it.

Red is filled with the emotions that come with love, loss and heartbreak; all of the things I tragically got to experience this year. This album takes me right back to 2012, just with a 2021 heartbreak. No matter if you’re living your best life or falling apart, this album is well worth a listen.