So the first track from Taylor Swift's mission to re-record all of her music that she doesn't own has been released. I was a bit surprised she started with Fearless, thinking she'd go in chronological order with her debut, but it makes sense. Taylor Swift may have been her first album, but Fearless was her introduction to superstardom.
I think people were expecting radically different versions of these songs, but when this dropped I think people realized what this undertaking actually was. There will be some differences, because playing these songs night after night on tour, you'll find new ways to play them and that can be worked into the arrangement and not be a drastic change. I will say, I can't wait to hear how time has affected the rest of the album. One of my favorite Taylor deep cuts is "The Way I Loved You", so that is high on my list, and I don't have to wait that much longer for it.
I am on the record about not liking Reputation and Lover. While folklore and evermore were better than those two works, my hope for what she gets out of revisiting her older albums, and specifically her country albums, is a better sense of who she is as an artist. It's felt like the last few years she was trying so hard to be this mega pop star, that she lost a lot of her power as a songwriter. When she gets around to Red, that's the album that I think will reawaken what's been hiding from her the last few years. And "State of Grace" is at the top of my wait list because it's my favorite song of hers and it deserves more love and attention.
