Taylor Swift stunned the music industry and the world when just this morning, she announced she had purchased back the master recordings of her first six albums from Shamrock Capital. Every single recording, including unreleased tracks, as well as the music videos, album artwork, concert films, and everything in between, now belongs to her.

So what about the Taylor’s Versions? We already have four of the six re-recorded albums: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021), Red (Taylor’s Version) (2021), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (2023), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (2023). reputation (Taylor’s Version), putatively thought to be the next re-recording on Swift’s roster, is according to her roughly 25% complete. She may release the vault tracks at some unspecified point in the future, but has found little to improve upon in the original recordings. Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) is already complete, and I can’t imagine she’ll leave it unreleased, although who’s to say if it will come with the Taylor’s Version branding that’s preceded the other four re-recordings?

Swift started this whole process when her masters were sold out from under her to someone who had no respect for her artistry, vision, or even her humanity. She had been subjected to “incessant, manipulative bullying” at his hands for years. It was a worst-case scenario for Swift, with her worst enemy owning her life’s work. I won’t glorify his actions by naming him. You can Google it if you so desire. This story isn’t his anyway.

Since she was the main songwriter for her entire body of work, she was allowed to start re-recording her first six albums after a certain amount of time had passed. What followed was the most masterful move of Swift’s career, or indeed any musician’s career in the industry’s history. If she couldn’t reclaim her masters, she would simply record new ones. To sweeten the pot for fans and incentivize streaming and buying the new versions, vault tracks were included that weren’t available on the original albums.

The idea of reclamation became a rallying cry for Swifties the world over. If Taylor could say no, and could systematically claim back pieces of herself piece by piece, then there was a blueprint in place for others to do the same. I don’t want to lose sight of the bigger picture here. As a wealthy white woman with a zealous and dedicated fanbase (among whose ranks is yours truly), and a marketing genius rivaling any brand of the past century, Swift already wielded an enormous amount of economic and social capital. Even people who didn’t know about her knew about her. But I don’t think that lessens the power of what she did, nor its significance for every artist in every medium moving forward.

Her name is now shorthand for the culture at large, a canvas upon which ideas of femininity, wealth, sex, and power are painted with reckless abandon. She released not one but two career-defining albums in the early days of the global pandemic, giving voice to the loneliness and isolation that still lingers like a ghost in the world’s house.

The juggernaut that was The Eras Tour (which I attended twice, in Nashville and Cincinnati) catapulted Swift to a level of fame, presence, and wealth that was and is truly astounding. Every night, she allowed us to see not only every version of ourselves, but every version of herself, and that dialogue of change and constancy is part of the unique alchemy that makes Swift so lovable and so inimitable.

We’re all reeling now because everything has changed. Does she even need to release the final two re-recordings? Her name and reputation are already hers once again, so the point seems moot. The completist in me still wants them, wants to see the end of the Yellow Brick Road we started off on with her back in 2021, the first time we heard the new versions of the old songs. I still want her to make it to the Wizard, to kill the Wicked Witch of the West and figure out she had the power in her to go back home all along. But then again, she did, didn’t she? She got everything she ever wanted, everything that was hers all along. She willed her own way home.

It is selfish and myopic of us to ask her to give us more, to cut off another piece of her flesh to feed us when it’s time for her to have some peace. Now once again having everything that was lost, it feels like the ending to a chapter. Not the story, of course. The story of us, of Taylor and her Swifties, will continue to be written. It will never end, not when we’re all dead and buried. We’re timeless. Long live the memories, the magic, and the moments we created together. The photographs will tell the only story that matters, the one the world will remember all too well.

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