Topline
Taylor Swift’s announcement Friday she would release a re-recording of her 2010 album Speak Now, the latest effort to reclaim her early albums following an ownership dispute—became the top-performing post on Twitter for the week.
Taylor Swift announced she would release a re-recording of her 2010 album “Speak Now.”
Key Facts
A re-recorded Speak Now album will release on July 7, Swift tweeted Friday, noting the album would be labeled as “Taylor’s Version”—sharing the same title as Fearless and Red, which were also re-recorded and released last year.
The album, initially released in October 2011, was the first Swift album to eclipse one million sales in its debut week, according to Billboard.
Swift also won two Grammy Awards for the song “Mean,” including best country solo performance and country song.
It was speculated Swift would release Speak Now as her next re-recorded album after light-up wristbands given to attendees of her “Eras Tour” turned purple—which her fans say represents the album—at the end of a concert in Atlanta earlier this week.
Swift’s tweet announcing the re-recorded album has received more than 894,000 likes and 290,000 retweets as of 1:45 p.m. EST Saturday, the most in either category for the week ending on May 6 despite being up for less than 24 hours.
Crucial Quote
Swift described the album, written between the ages of 18 and 20, as songs that “were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness.”
Big Number
325,000. That’s how many copies Red (Taylor’s Version) sold in the first five days after it was released in April 2022.
Key Background
Swift said she would re-record each of her first six albums after Big Machine Records, who Swift originally signed with at the start of her career, sold the rights to the albums to music manager Scooter Braun in 2019. Braun subsequently sold the rights—known as her masters—to Shamrock Capital, and Swift claimed she was never given an option to purchase the rights. Braun, who discovered Justin Bieber and manages other artists like Ariana Grande, has denied these claims. Following the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), the only three albums Swift has not re-recorded are Taylor Swift, 1989 and Reputation. After Swift announced she would re-record her albums, iHeartRadio said it would only play her re-recordings on its airways instead of the original versions. Her re-recorded albums have experienced similar success to their original counterparts, including Red (Taylor’s Version), which debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200 nearly a decade after its initial release.
Further Reading
Taylor Swift’s Re-Recorded ‘Red’ Hits No. 1 Nearly Decade After First Version Topped The Charts (Forbes)
Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ Has Mayors Groveling For Her Attention—Here’s What They’ve Given Her So Far (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2023/05/06/taylor-swift-announces-re-recorded-speak-now-and-hits-a-new-record/