Taylor Swift has announced the re-recorded Taylor’s Version of her 2014 album 1989. It’s out on October 27. The singer cleverly dropped the news on 8/9, which coincided with the last date of the first leg of her Eras tour at SoFi stadium near Los Angeles. The tour, a colossal success that will traverse South America, Japan, Australia, and Europe, returns for more North American dates in October 2024.
Swift used the beginning of the slot reserved for her “surprise” songs to share the news of the release, teasing the announcement by saying, “Here we are, the last night (of the tour) in the eighth month of the year … and the ninth day of the month.”
Swift tweeted, “Surprise!! 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is on its way to you!” She said the album changed her life “in countless ways and added, “To be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record I’ve ever done because the 5 From the Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind. But not for long!” Check out the artwork below.
With several blockbuster singles—including “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” “Style,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “Bad Blood”, Swift’s fifth album definitively turned to pop music after her country-leaning beginnings. Mega-hitmaker Max Martin co-wrote and co-produced most of the record. The album introduced a relatively early public debate about compensation models for streaming services, with Swift and her then-label Big Machine withholding the album from Spotify for nearly three years over the platform’s rates. The record won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2016 Grammys.
The rerecorded release of “1989” - which she named for her birth year - follows the arrival of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” in July, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Swift’s accomplishment – it’s her 12th album to reach the top slot – crowns her as the female artist with the most No. 1 albums in chart history (Barbra Streisand held the record with 11).