To understand the lore behind Taylor Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) 2021 release, you need to look back at her original release. Fresh off her debut album, a famous–not superstar–teenager wrote her frizzy-haired-cover ‘Fearless’. It was a smash hit. After selling a gargantuan 10 million copies, and an album of the year award later, Taylor was without fear for her potential in the music industry. Taylor’s dominance and dynasty of the music industry, (and overblown monopoly on the album of the year awards at the Grammys) started here, and it’s not necessarily hard to see why.
Fearless is charming as much as it is impressive for an 18 year old Swift to make. It’s a record filled with pitched singing of boys, relationships, and more boys. It’s a bit of a criticism that I’ve come to find less valid in more exposure to her music. However, one can only hear so much modern Romeo and Juliet interpretation.
However, in 2018, her separation from her long time label, Big Machine, left her without her previous masters. Her Masters did, indeed end up in the hands of Scooter Braun, who played probably nine figures for the superstars masters and works of everything Swift made from her Self Titled to Reputation. In an effort to reclaim, or at the least devalue the purchase, Taylor has decided to re-record everything in her catalogue, including tempting post 2018 releases.
It’s very clear why millions of ‘Swifties’ would latch onto her music so quickly, but it gets almost impossible to stay interested if you listen to lengthy amounts of Taylor Swift in one sitting. This was my concern going into the nearly 2 hour album, and about halfway through the album, it begins to become a bit of a drag. It’s clear that,for what Taylor was trying to accomplish, she squandered it with just too much content. Had Fearless (Taylor’s Version) simply been a more concise work of an hour of original tracks, with few bonuses, this could have been a contender for her best work yet. Unfortunately it falls to the wayside as a release that likely won’t be talked about more than 2 years from now, similar to her Folklore collection of releases.
Songs like ‘Love Story’ are classics that only really benefit from the updated production and vocals. Taylor’s now soft but mature voice fits like a glove on the Fearless production, and sounds like 2008. “You Belong with me” is a track that is tainted by its once perfect pacing and production, but scratched by its increased tempo, and awkward at best guitar solo in the second leg. Where Fearless (2008 Release) held this perfect track, with essentially no flaws, and perfect dictation, Taylor has dented it with unnecessary changes that only serve to distract the listener and be different for the sake of being different.
Meticulous changes aside, the important thing here is Taylor’s bonus and new tracks. This is likely the material off the album that I can see myself returning to often. Cuts like You All Over Me, and … are exceptional and welcome additions. It shows Taylor returning to her young self, but with a fresh sound that does not invoke the feeling of me wanting to return to the original.
Mr. Perfectly fine is the only real miss off these bonus tracks, and could go without, but everything else is fairly fresh and robust.
Taylor’s charm is slightly lost in the production of this album, as the material doesn’t truly fit into her current persona. The problem with rerecording your albums in an effort to claim your ownership of it, means that it’ll lack the same feelings the original carried.
Overall, Swift’s album sometimes doesn’t serve its intended purpose of a nostalgia trip, and turns into a bloated display of 2 hours of otherwise flawless songs, tweaked to be just the right amount of off. Despite my criticisms, Fearless (Taylor’s version), though intent for re-release seems a hair unwarranted, it’s a stride in bringing masters back to the artists who deserve them. As much as the effort in rerecording six studio albums for the sake of owning masters pails and seems not worth the effort, I have to commend it.
This past year, Kanye West’s surge and war against his label in an effort to take back his masters was commendable but offered irrelevant solutions to his near exact problem that Taylor faced. The only difference was that Taylor delivered, if less charming than the original.
