Taylor Swift fans had reason to rejoice Friday as the international superstar dropped her highly anticipated album Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) — complete with six unreleased songs.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is the third of six albums Swift will be re-recording after a dispute with music mogul Scooter Braun and her ex-record label. The feud arose in 2019 after it was revealed Swift, 33, did not own the master recordings to her older albums.
The Taylor’s Version albums already hold special status for dedicated Swifties all over the globe, and Speak Now is of extra importance because the 2010 album was the first where Swift is the only writer credited.
Physical copies of the new album came with a lengthy letter from Swift discussing where she was in her life when she wrote Speak Now, between 18 and 20 years old.
While creating the album, Swift wrote that she was “tormented by doubt that swirled loudly around my ascent and my merits as an artist.”
That insecure artist feels far away from the superstar expected to gross a whopping US$1.4 billion during the 102-show run of her current Eras Tour.
In a social media post celebrating the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Swift said the album belongs to her and her dedicated fans.
“I wrote alone about the whims, fantasies, heartaches, dramas and tragedies I lived out as a young woman between 18 and 20,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post Friday. “I remember making tracklist after tracklist, obsessing over the right way to tell the story. I had to be ruthless with my choices, and I left behind some songs I am still unfailingly proud of now. Therefore, you have 6 From The Vault tracks!”
These six new tracks — Electric Touch (featuring Fall Out Boy), When Emma Falls in Love, I Can See You, Castles Crumbling (featuring Hayley Williams), Foolish One and Timeless — are slotted amid the album’s original 16 songs.
Swift continued, writing she was filled with appreciation “for life, for you, for the fact that I get to reclaim my work.”
The singer’s loyal fanbase has already stormed social media to praise Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).
Fans have especially had fun with the Taylor’s Version of the song Dear John, a track widely rumoured to be about a breakup between Swift and singer John Mayer. At the time of their alleged short-term relationship, Swift would have been 19 while Mayer was 32.
In June, before performing Dear John live in concert, Swift appeared to tell fans not to bully Mayer ahead of the Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) release.
“I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19,” Swift said. “I’m not putting this album out so that you can go and should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”
Naturally, many of Swift’s fans have bullied Mayer anyway.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is already number one on iTunes in more than 125 countries. In just eight hours, the album reportedly broke the record for reaching number one in the most countries in iTunes history.
Hopefully the undeniable popularity of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) may even inspire the singer to schedule a Canadian Eras Tour date for her eager fans. Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is apparently a Swiftie — he tweeted at the singer on Wednesday asking Swift to come to Canada.
“It’s me, hi. I know places in Canada would love to have you. So, don’t make it another cruel summer. We hope to see you soon,” Trudeau wrote.