New project is due this fall
Taylor Swift is set to release 1989 (Taylor’s Version) as the next of her re-recorded albums, due October 27th via Republic Records. The new version drops nine years to the date of its original release by Big Machine Records in 2014.
The pop star shared the news during the final concert of her six night sold out stand in Los Angeles during The Eras Tour tonight (Wed, Aug 9th). It was announced ahead of her Surprise Songs set which featured “New Romantics,” the only song from 1989 that had not been performed on the tour until now.
“Here we are in the last stop of US leg of The Eras Tour in the eighth month of the year. The ninth day,” she says to loud applause. “There’s something that I’ve been planning for a really, really, really, ridiculously embarrassingly long time,” she says before unveiling the album artwork in the large 8K OLED screen behind her.
Swift alluded to the album’s imminent announcement as she donned a series of blue outfits — the album’s motif — leading up for the big reveal. Swifties live tweeted their anticipation as they unveiled each Easter Egg throughout the concert.
The new version will feature 21 songs with five previously unreleased songs From The Vault. Each album will contain a collectible jacket with unique front and back cover art, lyrics and never-before-seen photos.
The project will be available in various 2 LP configurations, CD, cassette and digital. The CD includes a 10-inch by 10-inch double-sided foldable poster with a full size photo of Swift and handwritten lyrics of “Welcome to New York.”
Four special edition colored deluxe CDs are being offered through August 13th through her webstore. Each one includes five unique double-sided collectible photo cards with 15 never-before-seen photos and lyrics from The Vault.
“The 1989 album changed my life in countless ways, and it fills me with such excitement to announce that my version of it will be out October 27th,” she shares on Instagram. “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!”
Swift is currently in the midst of releasing re-recorded versions of her first six studio albums following a public feud with her former label, Big Machine Label Group. In July, she released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), featuring 22 songs, including five six From the Vault songs that were written during the album’s original era, but not recorded until recently.
Upon its release last month, she achieved “the biggest debut for an album this year” with Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), her third re-recorded album, registering first-week sales of 716 thousand album equivalents in the US and over one million album equivalents worldwide, landing her at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. At the same time, the project made history by scoring “the biggest sales week for a re-recorded album ever,” besting even the one million first-week global consumption of Red (Taylor’s Version) in 2021. Plus, it notched the “second biggest vinyl sales week in Nielsen history,” following Taylor Swift’s Midnights. In addition, Swift is the first living artist in nearly 60 years with four of the top ten on the Billboard 200 with Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Midnights, Lover, and Folklore.
