Taylor Swift ended up re-recording her first six albums under her new deal with Republic Records after a failed attempt to reclaim the masters following the end of her contract with Big Machine, the label on which they were recorded. Fearless (Taylor’s Version), a revised version of her 2008 sophomore album that also included six new tracks, was the first re-release last Friday. The singer opened up about her thought process in re-creating the album more than a decade after it was released in a recent interview with People.
“In terms of production, I really wanted to stay very loyal to the initial melodies that I had thought of for these songs,” she said. “And so we really did go in and try to create a ‘the same but better’ version. We kept all the same parts that I initially dreamed up for these songs. But if there was any way that we could improve upon the sonic quality, we did… But yeah, I did go in line by line and listen to every single vocal and think, you know, what are my inflections here.” She added, “If I can improve upon it, I did. But I really did want this to be very true to what I initially thought of and what I had initially written. But better. Obviously.”
Shortly after she released Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Swift wrote a touching letter about the album in which she said, “It was an honor to get to be a teenage alongside you.”
