In 2019, when Scooter Braun acquired Scott Borchetta‘s Big Machine Label Group, the deal included all of Taylor Swift‘s master recordings from her first six albums. Swift vocally spoke out about the deal at the time, since she was unaware her masters were part of the sale until after it happened and had issues with Braun already.
At the time, Swift vowed to re-record her early albums so she would own the new masters. Today, she announced that a new version of her second record, Fearless, will be out in the near future. Titled Fearless (Taylor’s Version), it has 26 songs in total, include six never-before-released tracks.
In a statement on social media, she wrote, “I’ve spoken a lot about why I’m remaking my first six albums but the way I’ve chosen to do this will hopefully help illuminate where I’m coming from. Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really *knows* that body of work. For example, only I know which songs I wrote that almost made the Fearless album. Songs I absolutely adored, but were held back for different reasons (don’t want too many breakup songs, don’t want too many down tempo songs, can’t fit that many songs on a physical CD).”
She continued, “Those reasons seem unnecessary now. I’ve decided I want you to have the whole story, see the entire vivid picture, and let you into the entire dreamscape that is my Fearless album. That’s why I’ve chosen to include six never before released songs on my version of this album. Written when I was between the ages of 16 and 18, these were the ones it killed me to leave behind.”
Swift concluded, “This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me even more determined to re-record all of my music. I hope you’ll like this first outing as much as I liked traveling back in time to recreate it.”
The “Taylor’s Version” of her hit “Love Song” will land tonight at midnight. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) will be out April 9.
As for her original master recordings, they no longer even belong to Braun, as he sold them off to an investment fund in November, again without her knowledge.
