Taylor Swift, the singer that never goes out of style, welcomed her fans back to New York with the rerelease of her album, “1989” on October 27th. With the original, deluxe edition album holding sixteen songs, the new “1989 (Taylor’s Version) Deluxe Editon” includes a total of twenty-two songs. Amongst these twenty-two songs, five of them are songs that Swift, and the fandom, refer to as “vault tracks.” These are songs written during the time of the original album, 2014, that are now being released. While new songs are exciting, the fans can’t have bad blood with the original pieces. For many longtime fans, these rereleases can get nostalgic just for that reason.
“I’ve been a Taylor Swift fan since the original 1989 release,” said sophomore Kathryn Williams. For many fans, hearing the “Taylor’s Version” of the album is like hearing it for the first time again which reignites Swiftie’s passion and love for the albums.
With Swift rerecording the album around 9 years later, expectations were held high for the 33-year-old singer. While the majority of her fans are in their own wonderland listening to the album, others found it not reaching their expectations.
“…some songs sounded so different and autotuned,” said senior Reese Davis. The idea of the songs being autotuned spread around social media quickly. Fan’s videos across the platform TikTok talk about how some songs sound Ai generated, however that doesn’t stop them from listening. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) broke Spotify’s record for the most listened-to album in one day which replaced her tenth studio album, “Midnights.” After days of streaming the album, opinions for the vault songs began to sweep across media platforms too.
“I loved the vault tracks…no idea why she didn’t include them in her original album,” said Williams. A few days after the album’s release, voice memos by Swift were released on Tumblr in which she talks about some of the vault tracks. For the third vault track, “Now That We Don’t Talk”, Swift explains how the song was created towards the end of the process. Adding on that at the time, she and her producers/co-writers, Max Martin and Shellback, couldn’t get the production right which caused it to be left behind in the vaults.
While Swifties are living their wildest dreams in their 1989 (Taylor’s Version) era, there are still two blank spaces when it comes to the total 6 rerecords. Taylor Swifts debut album, Taylor Swift, and sixth studio album, Reputation, have yet to be rereleased. A popular speculation among the Swifties is Reputation being rereleased next. With small easter eggs being left behind by Swift, the fandom knows that her chaos isn’t over now.
