Now Everything Is Taylor’s Version

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Picture of me at *The Eras Tour* in Nashville. My surprise songs that night were “Fifteen” and “Out Of The Woods”.

Picture of me at *The Eras Tour* in Cincinnati. My surprise songs that night were “ivy” (feat. Aaron Dessner), “I miss you, I’m sorry” (feat. Gracie Abrams), and “Call It What You Want”.

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.

The photographs will tell the only story that matters, the one the world will remember all too well.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Happy Release Day to Taylor Swift and The Tortured Poets Department

Album cover for Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album, *The Tortured Poets Department*

It’s been a long time coming…

But we finally get to hear The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated 11th studio album, which she announced the night she won the Grammy for Album of the Year for Midnights earlier this year.

Everyone knows I’m a massive Swiftie. I was fortunate enough to see Miss Americana on her record-breaking Eras Tour in both Nashville and Cincinnati (VIP floor seats for Nashville, lower bowl for Cincinnati), and they were two of the most transformative experiences of my life so far.

That said, I already own like 16 copies of this album that I’ve not even heard a teaser of (I am writing this on March 23rd, 2024) because you know I had to buy every single variant: The Manuscript, The Bolter, The Albatross, and The Black Dog. And each of them came in vinyl, CD, and cassette formats. So, I’ve spent roughly $300 or more on this album and I am not anywhere near approaching rich. I’m paycheck to paycheck, so this album had better deliver. But I know it will. I’m afraid it might dethrone folklore as my favorite Swift album.

My first clue that that might be the case was the song titles, of course. I mean, “Clara Bow”? As in, THE Clara Bow, the silent film siren who successfully transitioned into talkies in the late 20s. The woman who Taylor has been subtly Easter-egging into different pieces of content? Honey, I’m a child of TCM and I am ready for this album. I saw a lot of people on Twitter (ain’t no such thing as X) already claiming what they think their favorite songs will be, so I was and am obliged to do the same. “Clara Bow” belongs to me.

I will post reactions to my first listen-through ASAP, I promise you.

What I’ve Been Listening To

Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any amount of time knows that while I’m a physical, tangible media kind of a dude, I’m also on the go a lot. I have a portable handheld cassette player but it’s cumbersome to carry around more than one cassette at any given time to play in it. I’m also very careful, gentle, and anal-retentive with all of my belongings so I don’t relish the thought of my cassettes (or any of my belongings, for that matter) being exposed to the elements and/or being jostled in my purse.

That said, I tend to carry around just one book at a time (zipped in my purse carefully or protected in a padded book sleeve) and listen to music on my phone via Apple Music. Please note that I’m aware that in the current zeitgeist Spotify reigns supreme while Apple Music, much like Facebook, is for oldsters. I don’t care. I like to look at my Replay every week to see which songs I’ve had on repeat, some of them the whole year long. I wanted to share them here so you can see just how unhinged my listening habits truly are.

Top 5 Songs

#1: Innocent (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift (64 plays)

#2: Violet Chemistry by Miley Cyrus (54 plays)

#3: Choreomania by Florence + the Machine (46 plays)

#4: Thousand Miles (feat. Brandi Carlile) (38 plays)

#5: Used To Be Young by Miley Cyrus (36 plays)

Top 5 Artists

#1: Taylor Swift (4,325 minutes)

#2: Lana Del Rey (2,034 minutes)

#3: Miley Cyrus (776 minutes)

#4: Florence + the Machine (428 minutes)

#5: Halsey (335 minutes)

Top 5 Albums

#1: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift (203 plays)

#2: Midnights (The Til Dawn Edition) by Taylor Swift (188 plays)

#3: Endless Summer Vacation by Miley Cyrus (136 plays)

#4: Midnights (3am Edition) by Taylor Swift (121 plays)

#5: folklore (deluxe version) by Taylor Swift (108 plays)

Two things of note I want to point out. One, there are two different versions of Midnights in my top five. That’s 309 plays on Apple Music alone. That doesn’t count all the times I’ve listened to the album on any other format. Can I quote it by heart? Yes. Do I think it should win Album of the Year at the Grammys? Absolutely! Midnights supremacy.

The second thing is that Miley Cyrus’s song Used To Be Young was just released on August 25th and it’s already in my top five most-played songs of the current calendar year. That song is resonating with me. I mean, I’m not nostalgic about a youth spent basking in an endless bacchanalia because that wasn’t ever my reality. I spent my youth working my way through school and now just working, endlessly. Am I still young? I guess I am, by most conventional definitions. I’m 27, but I feel hundreds of years old. Like a vampire. I have high blood pressure and diabetes and asthma and I live 95-plus percent of my life in a 5-mile radius. But enough with the self-pity. It’s just a really good song.

Anyway, here’s the link to my Replay 2023: Apple Music for Fred. Enjoy!

Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version) – Single

What kind of game is Taylor playing with us?

Here I had myself emotionally prepped for a new Red era, one assuaged of the guilt accompanying listening to the BMR (original) version. Now she drops a re-recorded single from 1989?

I didn’t have a full-fledged rebellion in me, but I wanted to act out in a very concrete, yet still mostly vanilla way.

A little background for you all. I was a college freshman in 2014. The world was eagerly awaiting Taylor Swift’s pure pop debut as was I. I’ve always been somewhat of a goody two shoes, flaunting my moral superiority over the weaker beings inhabiting my sphere. But I was young. Well, young-er than I am now. I didn’t have a full-fledged rebellion in me, but I wanted to act out in a very concrete, yet still mostly vanilla way.

As the last notes of “Clean” played out, I declared that she would garner another Grammy for Album of the Year. And she did.

So on October 27th, 2014, I skipped every single college class I had that day. I went to Walmart very early in the morning to buy 1989, so early in fact that the employee working in electronics had to open the box containing the CDs so I could buy one. I stopped by McDonald’s for some sausage biscuits and a large soda, and I went home (I didn’t live on campus; dorms are gross, no thank you). I listened to it all the way through, patiently absorbing this new sound of Taylor’s. And I fell in love. As the last notes of “Clean” played out, I declared that she would garner another Grammy for Album of the Year. And she did.

I am a veritable maelstrom of confusion, angst, and guarded anticipation.

So can you imagine how I feel right now? I am a veritable maelstrom of confusion, angst, and guarded anticipation. What is next for the Swiftie community? What will Mother Taylor give us next? I will be watching closely to find out.

From the Archives: Quotes Graphics Part 3

I have a lot of these, but this will probably be the last batch I’ll share for a while. I have a lot of reading to catch up on because my day job has been incredibly time-consuming recently. Let me know what you think!

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

From the Archives: Quotes Graphics Part 2

As promised, here are more of the quotes graphics I made last year.

Listen, I know I’m not going to win any awards for graphic designing but these were so much to make. Stay tuned for part three!

From the Archives: Quotes Graphics

There was a time last year when I became obsessed with making quotes graphics like a bored suburban Pinterest Princess.

I’m not going to lie, I’m probably going to do it again sometime in the future. It was a good way for me to have a creative outlet that wasn’t writing and that didn’t require me to practice delayed gratification, which is not something people with ADHD are good at.

This time in my life also coincided with Taylor Swift’s surprise release of folklore, and let’s just say I was *really* in my feelings. As we all probably were.

This time in my life also coincided with Taylor Swift’s surprise release of folklore, and let’s just say I was *really* in my feelings. As we all probably were.

This is probably going to be a three-part series because I have a lot of graphics to share. I hope you enjoy them!

“Devils Roll the Dice, Angels Roll Their Eyes”: Reacting to That Vanity Fair Article

In case you didn’t already know, I’m a diehard Taylor Swift stan. Or Swiftie, if you will. She is the author of every emotion I’ve ever had, and I will most definitely fight someone over her. When Taylor released folklore, I bought all eight of the deluxe albums with different covers. #NoRegrets

Bonus: Which of Taylor Swift’s 8 Folklore Covers Are You? by Zoe Haylock for Vulture

If you’ve not followed the controversy surrounding BMLG (Big Machine Label Group)’s ownership of the masters for Taylor Swift’s first six albums (Taylor Swift through reputation), it is quite the scandal. Pre-fame Taylor didn’t realize that her catalog would become such a valuable commodity. For those of you who don’t know, a master is an artist’s first recording of a song or record and it’s from this master that all other copies are manufactured. Whoever owns the master(s) therefore owns all versions of the music, both physical and digital.

Taylor Swift first signed her contract with Big Machine Records in 2005. It stipulated that in exchange for a cash advance, BMR would own the rights to Swift’s first six albums. Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), and Reputation (2017) and their accompanying master recordings (as well as the album artwork) were property of BMR under the original contract.

When Swift’s contract with BMR expired in November of 2018, she signed a new contract with Republic Records, whose parent company is Universal Music Group (UMG). It turns out that some lyrics from “Look What You Made Me Do” became prophetic: “But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time”; this time around, Taylor would retain ownership of her masters with each new recording, starting with Lover (2019).

“You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince

Big Machine Records was acquired by Scooter Braun through his company Ithaca Holdings in 2019. The paltry sum: a reported $300,000,000. With Braun’s acquisition, he now legally owned the masters to Swift’s first six albums.

Taylor took to tumblr. to decry the deal. For her, it was a worst-case scenario. She’d been trying to buy the rights to her work back for years, but Scott Borchetta, founder and CEO of Big Machine Records, would only let her do so if she signed a new contract, one with terms that to her were unconscionable. Note: You can read Taylor’s reaction on her tumblr.

And when you can’t sleep at night / You hear my stolen lullabies
my tears ricochet

Here’s why I believe Taylor: if her claims were actually counterfactual, Braun would have cause for a major defamation suit. He would hold all the cards. Instead, we have puff pieces (which really read like nothing more than information subsidies from Braun’s own PR team) like the one in Vanity Fair with the classic good old boy exoneration and exaltation, i.e. “All these other people love me and have nothing but nice things to say about me, so this can’t possibly be true.” How many times have we borne witness to this exact scenario, wherein a woman’s word and work are dismissed to uphold a man’s ego based on nothing more than a shoddy bootstraps narrative and a goofy smile? If she’s a liar, show the receipts. No? That’s all the proof I need.

How many times have we borne witness to this exact scenario, wherein a woman’s word and work are dismissed to uphold a man’s ego based on nothing more than a shoddy bootstraps narrative and a goofy smile? If she’s a liar, show the receipts.

This really is a tale as old as time and it speaks to one of the biggest assertions of artistry; namely, that what you create should not only belong to you, but that it is in fact inseparable from the rest of your being. Taylor’s detractors can all take a seat. With her re-recordings of her first six albums, fans can now enjoy Taylor’s back catalog without helping men like Braun and Borchetta to profit off her work. Looks like Taylor got the last laugh.

These are the albums you can purchase which Taylor owns the rights to. *Red (Taylor’s Version)* is forthcoming, as are the re-recorded versions of *Taylor Swift*, *Speak Now*, *1989*, and *reputation*.

As always, thank you for your unwavering support of this blog and my work. I love you all. I think it’s appropriate to close here with a lyric from evermore:

Your nemeses will defeat themselves / Before you get the chance to swing
— long story short

Red (Taylor’s Version)

“Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street.” — *Red*

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a blog about books. But it’s also about whatever I want to talk about. And if we’re getting technical, our Reverend Mother Taylor Alison Swift has contributed at least as much (if not more) to American song craft as Bob Dylan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 by the Swedish Academy. I rest my case.

I am LIVING for this era of Taylor Swift. In 2020, she brought us not one but two full-length studio albums (folklore and evermore). With folklore, Taylor made history, becoming the first woman in the history of the Grammy Awards to take home THREE Album of the Year Awards, for Fearless, 1989, and now folklore. (Note: I’m not linking to the original versions of Fearless and 1989 because Taylor has asked her fans not to support the versions of her music released under the Big Machine Label Group. For more about how to make those pesky older versions disappear, please check out this awesome article in Variety.

“This path is reckless.” *— Treacher*ous

And yesterday, Taylor announced that the next album she’ll be releasing will be a re-recording of 2012’s iconic Red, which brought us masterpieces like “Red”, “All Too Well”, and “I Knew You Were Trouble” (which in hindsight sounds like the strongest hint about the upcoming 1989-era on the entire record). The large and fiercely devoted community of Swifties is blowing up social media with theories, speculations, and forensic analyses about Taylor’s Easter eggs, which if you follow the trails, led to Red (Taylor’s Version) the WHOLE TIME!

The large and fiercely devoted community of Swifties is blowing up social media with theories, speculations, and forensic analyses about Taylor’s Easter eggs, which if you follow the trails, led to Red (Taylor’s Version) the WHOLE TIME!

“And the saddest fear comes creeping in. That you never loved me or her, or anyone, or anything…” — *I Knew You Were Trouble*

The fact that she made the announcement on Scooter Braun’s birthday makes the whole thing glimmer with the iridescence of her haters’ tears, imbuing the whole affair with a sense of righteous indignation and utter pettiness that I aspire to. Drag him, Taylor! November 19th cannot get here fast enough.

The fact that she made the announcement on Scooter Braun’s birthday makes the whole thing glimmer with the iridescence of her haters’ tears, imbuing the whole affair with a sense of righteous indignation and utter pettiness that I aspire to.

What are you most excited to hear in Red (Taylor’s Version)? Personally, I am dying to hear the re-recorded version of “All Too Well”, but the fact that the album will feature all 30 of the originally-intended tracks is almost too much for my heart to stand.

In the meantime, I would not be a bit surprised if Taylor drops another album with all-new material in the interim before Red (Taylor’s Version) releases in November. She’s set a whole new standard when it comes to providing one’s fans with fresh material. It’s getting to the point where I’m going to have to make “New Taylor Swift Music and Merchandise” a line item in my monthly budget. Oh well. She can take my money. She already has my heart.

You can preorder Red (Taylor’s Version) here.