“1989 (Taylor’s Version)” came at the end of October with a litany of rumors, from Swift having written over a hundred songs for the album back in the 2010s, special features from the supposed muse of the album, Harry Styles, or even a double album release. But altogether, the album had fewer changes than the previous re-recordings but made up for it in the absolutely heart-wrenching vault tracks.
The Era
The original 1989 album was Swift’s first all-pop album, which according to her, drew many influences from the 80’s synth-pop of her childhood. The album was written and released during Swift’s “for the girls” era, just after moving to New York City and ending her relationship with other pop sensation Harry Styles.
This era of Swift was dominated by her enjoying being a music star and spending time with her friends. Swifties everywhere were inundated with photos of posh parties filled with 300 of Swift’s closest friends. In many ways, it was the start of the popstar and the end of the country girl with the guitar.
The Album
1989 starts with the banger essential to every girl moving to the big city, “Welcome to New York (Taylor’s Version)”, and moves through a selection of bouncy pop songs, the kind you have to get up and dance to. Overall, the biggest change between the rerecording and the original album is with the production. The album is audibly cleaner and crisper, with more defined instrumentation than the original. It also has a level of maturity to the beautiful lyrics of the album, attributed to the decade between the recording of this version and the original.
The other thing that stands out to me is my favorite track of the original album, “You Are in Love.” This song is written not about one of Swift’s closest friends, and current main producer Jack Antinoff’s relationship at the time. It is about seeing one of your best friends in love and understanding what real love looks like outside of your own bad relationship. It shows that love is not just a thing that exists in your head but exists around you and in your friends’ minds. That a good love glows out of you.
The Vault
The most exciting part of the album is always the vault, the songs written by Swift that did not make their way onto the original album. “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” has five vault tracks, which all have to do, seemingly, with the development and devolution of a relationship in the spotlight.
“Slut!” is a song about the social labelling from entering a relationship, and it being worth it in order to be in the relationship. The next track, “Say Don’t GO” seems to be a sister in many ways to the track “All you had to do was Stay” from the original album about the end of a relationship, when you as the person still invested keep pouring and pouring int the relationship, and then it ends because you stop doing the effort and then the relationship falls apart, and it breaks you.
The last three songs are after the relationship. “Suburban Legends” is about how despite all your hopes and dreams, you and that person were going in different directions, and it was never going to be the perfect love story you see in your head. “Now That We Don’t Talk” and “Is it Over Now” are the final two songs off of the vault and they are in my opinion, twins. They both exist in that space after the end of a relationship where you aggressively refresh all of your mutual friends’ social media, and both obsess over and obsess over not obsessing over, what they are doing now. What they wear, who they date and why they left.
Overall, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” does what Swift has done since the beginning of her career. She puts the lifetime experiences and feelings of women of that age into a flash-fossil to be related to and felt and analyzed for as long as we have pop music.
Abigail Spencer can be reached at [email protected] or on X @ABairdSpencer