Album Review: Taylor Swift is ‘Fearless’ in Reclaiming Her Music

The renowned singer-songwriter’s re-recorded version of her award-winning sophomore effort brings back memories of an old Taylor Swift while simultaneously telling the story of a new, freer version of herself. 

Written by Arundhati Ghosh

Photo courtesy of TAS Rights Management 2021 via Getty Images 

Taylor Swift has, quite literally, done it again. 

In 2008, an 18-year-old Swift released her second album, the critically acclaimed Fearless. At the time, Swift was a rising musician known for earnest lyrics and cross-over appeal.. Now 31, and fresh off her ninth full-length album, Taylor Swift has released a complete re-recording of the LP that launched her to stardom. 

In 2019, Swift lost ownership of her first six albums to Scooter Braun when the record executive acquired Swift’s former label, Big Machine Records. While the songstress cannot claim the masters of the original Fearless, she can and is in control of the masters for Fearless (Taylor’s Version). Thus, the money made from the albums will not line Braun’s pockets. In remaking her first six albums, Swift will reclaim what she sees as rightfully hers. The first in her series of album remakes, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), is a collection of the same songs — with six notable additions — as its namesake, with every effort made to make it sound identical to the original. However, Taylor’s Version is not Fearless’ twin; the re-recording is more of an older, wiser sister. Swift tells stories she’s already told, but with a new perspective.

Photo courtesy of Taylor Swift

In considering what is different about Taylor’s Version, her distinct lack of the Southern twang that characterized her original country music is most noticeable. The maturation of Swift’s voice and the way she’s refined her singing abilities over the years is evident; she no longer audibly takes breaths between lines and shows more vocal control. The original recording of  “Fearless” also sees Swift drop her ‘g’s and draw out her vowels while she sings to the object of her affections: “I’m tryin’ so hard not to get caught up now / But you’re just so cool / Run your hands through your hair / Absentmindedly makin’ me want you.” She attempts to sound the same in “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” but does not succeed entirely. The difference is so marked that, in Apple Music’s lyrics tab, the lyrics for “Fearless” have “tryin’” and “makin’” rather than “trying” and “making,” which are how the lyrics are written in “Fearless (Taylor’s Version).” Apart from Swift’s singing, some of the instrumentals are slightly altered as well; there is an added beat in “You Belong With Me (Taylor’s Version).” The stereotypically country instruments such as the banjo, acoustic guitar, and harmonica backing her voice are not new to Swift, but are a departure from the dreamy, indie folk of folklore and its sister album evermore. 

Fearless and, by extension, Taylor’s Version, lyrically is mostly about the peaks and pitfalls of love. Though not every track is about romance — “The Best Day” is for her mother, and “Change” is about overcoming obstacles in life —  an undercurrent of learning from love persists through the album. The difference in lyrics between the re-recording and the original does not lie in the actual words themselves, but in their new perspective. Every lyric reveals a new meaning: in “Fifteen,” when 18-year-old Swift sang that “In your life you’ll do things greater than / Dating the boy on the football team,” she’d just put out a debut album and was opening tours for other singers. When Swift sings those words of wisdom now, it’s after she’s topped the Billboard charts countless times, won eleven Grammys, and starred in her own documentary. Overall, the rawness that Swift’s delivery had in Fearless no longer exists in Taylor’s Version. In 2008, she was relatively new to the music industry and had just begun to learn about love and loss. Now, Swift is a veteran in all the aspects of the life she was only beginning to step into at 18. But this is not an unwelcome shift; as the singer has grown up, her audience has done so alongside her.

Photo courtesy of Republic Records

Taylor’s Version has an air of having grown up and has lived and learned in the places Fearless seemed anticipatory and full of wonder. Some songs, such as the bouncy “Hey Stephen (Taylor’s Version)” and the angry, fast-paced “Tell Me Why (Taylor’s Version)”, maintain their original atmospheres, but overall, Taylor’s Version truly evokes the reflectiveness that Swift intended Fearless to have in 2008, but could not quite deliver upon due to her youth. The fact that Swift wrote the six new tracks on Taylor’s Version — marked as (From the Vault) — around the time of Fearless’ release but is only now releasing them to the public, only adds to the nostalgic, reflective vibe Taylor’s Version brings to the table.

The six new songs represent an interesting mix of ‘old Taylor’ and ‘new Taylor.’ Instruments such as the harmonica, the banjo, or higher guitar strings used in “You All Over Me”, “Mr. Perfectly Fine”, and “We Were Happy” in particular, line up with the instruments used in the original songs on Fearless. However, Swift does not even attempt to sing in what used to be her signature twang. Instead, she adopts the same style and tone present in her recent albums. “Don’t You” sounds less country or country pop than the rest of the album, but Swifts’ words are straightforward: “Sometimes I really wish that I could hate you / I’ve tried but that’s just something I can’t do.” The lyrics are meant to weave a story, which is folklore-esque in nature when compared to the rest of the album’s songs. “That’s When” and “Bye Bye Baby” are similar in that regard, especially as their instrumental tracks do not match up with the rest of the album. Though they are an almost jarring departure from the previous 23 songs, the tracks “From the Vault” serve the purpose of bringing the listener back to the present day following a powerful walk down memory lane. 

Overall, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is more than just a re-record: it’s a juxtaposition between who Taylor Swift was then and who she is now. No longer a bright-eyed young girl, Swift is now a woman set on reclaiming and owning her narrative — this time with wisdom and an old flair.