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Speak Now (Taylor's Version) is the third re-recorded album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on July 7, 2023, via Republic Records. It is a re-recording of Swift's third studio album, Speak Now (2010), and follows her 2021 re-recorded albums, Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version). The re-recording is a part of Swift's counteraction to her 2019 masters dispute. The album was announced on May 5, 2023, at the first Nashville show of her ongoing concert tour, the Eras Tour. It features 2 collaborations with American rock acts Fall Out Boy and Hayley Williams in different songs.
Background[edit]
Taylor Swift released her third studio album, Speak Now, on October 25, 2010, under Big Machine Records. A country pop and pop rock album, Speak Now was entirely self-written by Swift and received positive reviews from music critics. It sold over 1,047,000 copies within its opening week in the United States—the largest first week in history for a female country artist,[2] and the first million-selling week of Swift's career, a feat she would go on to repeat four more times.[3] Speak Now achieved the Guinness World Record as the fastest selling album in the U.S. by a female country act.[4] At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards (2012), its single "Mean" won Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song.[5]
Swift released three more studio albums under Big Machine, as per her recording contract, which expired in November 2018. She hence withdrew from Big Machine and signed a new deal with Republic Records, which secured her the rights to own the masters of any new music she would release.[6] In 2019, American businessman Scooter Braun acquired Big Machine;[7] the ownership of the masters to Swift's first six studio albums, including Speak Now, transferred to him.[8] In August 2019, Swift denounced Braun's purchase and announced that she would re-record her first six studio albums so as to own their masters herself.[9] Swift began the re-recording process in November 2020.[10] Fearless (Taylor's Version), the first of her six re-recorded albums, was released on April 9, 2021, followed by Red (Taylor's Version) on November 12, 2021; both achieved critical and commercial success, debuting atop the U.S. Billboard 200 chart.[11][12]
Speculations about Swift's next re-recorded album being that of Speak Now dated back as far as November 2021, when she released Red (Taylor's Version), referencing key words of the 2010 era in social media posts.[13] The music videos for "Bejeweled" and "Lavender Haze", released in 2022 and 2023, respectively, contained numerous Easter eggs referencing Speak Now.[14][15] Fan theories intensified after Swift's 2023 concert tour, the Eras Tour, began: the multi-colored wristbands that attendees received flashed purple at the end of a concert, Swift hinted at a re-release during the performance of "Speak Now" and then used a purple heart emoji on social media days before the announcement.[16]
On May 5, 2023, at the first Nashville date of the Eras Tour, Swift announced Speak Now (Taylor's Version) as her next re-recorded album, set for release on July 7.[17] The announcement acted as a lead-in to one of her "surprise songs", an acoustic version of the album's second track "Sparks Fly"; lights along the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge turned purple.[18] She subsequently revealed in social media posts, "I love this album because it tells a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing ... and living to speak about it".[19] Swift emphasized the hardships she faced in her life during the time she wrote the record, among them "brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness".[20][21]
Release[edit]
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Speak Now (Taylor's Version) was released on July 7, 2023, making it Swift's third re-recorded album.[22] The re-recording of "If This Was a Movie", one of the three deluxe edition songs from the original album, was released as a promotional single and included on a Fearless (Taylor's Version)-themed streaming compilation on March 17, 2023.[23][24] It has been speculated that the song was re-released in this manner to ensure that Speak Now (Taylor's Version) would be entirely self-written.[25] The standard vinyl edition of Speak Now (Taylor's Version) is a set of three marbled violet LP records.[26] Two additional lilac and orchid-colored marbled variants will also be released.[27][28]
On June 5, 2023, Swift announced the track-list of Speak Now (Taylor's Version). It contains 22 tracks: the re-recordings of the 14 original songs from the standard edition, "Ours" and "Superman"—the remaining two of the original deluxe edition tracks—and six new "From the Vault" songs that were written for the 2010 album but never included.[29] American rock acts Fall Out Boy and Hayley Williams of Paramore, who were cited by Swift as influences on her lyrics while writing Speak Now, are featured on the vault tracks "Electric Touch" and "Castles Crumbling", respectively.[29]
On June 24, 13 days before the album release, Swift teased a snippet of "Mine (Taylor's Version)" on social media.[30] On June 29, a short preview of "Back to December (Taylor's Version)" featured in the official trailer for the second season of Amazon Prime Video series The Summer I Turned Pretty.[31]
Piracy[edit]
On June 9, 2023, French newspaper Ouest-France reported that a temporary worker from Le Mans, France, was arrested for stealing 10 vinyl records of Speak Now (Taylor's Version) from the warehouse and selling them on Leboncoin, a classified ads website; two copies of the album were sold for €25 each, following which he raised the cost to €50 per unit. The worker—who had been convicted 24 times before for theft, damage, drug trafficking, fraud and various other offences—has been sentenced to eight months in prison. The public prosecutor stated that only the eight unsold LPs were retrieved from him while the whereabouts of the two sold copies are unknown, posing a threat of leaking online.[32][33] The back cover, guest features and titles of the vault tracks leaked online before Swift could reveal them.[34]