Taylor Swift’s two versions Love Story compared

Taylor Swift has released a re-recorded version of her hit single Love Story, as part of an attempt to regain control of her music.

The star’s master recordings were sold against her will in 2019, prompting her to return to the studio and make new recordings of her first six albums.

Swift will retain ownership of and royalties from those sessions, which she hopes will replace the originals.

The star, who produced the new version herself, hasn’t tinkered with the arrangement or the lyrics, although the musicians are new.

“I really wanted my touring band to get a chance to play on this version,” explained Swift, “because you know they spent a lot of years playing this song over and over again”.

The biggest difference is the fidelity. Everything sounds crisper, with more separation between the instruments. That allows you to pick out little details that were buried in the original – the sound of the pick on the banjo strings or the cymbal hits in the middle eight.

Swift’s voice has matured, too. There’s added depth and warmth to her vocals; and she enunciates more clearly (compare the separation between the words “my eyes” in the opening verse). Nonetheless, she does a good job of capturing the romantic innocence she first conveyed as an 18-year-old.

Other small details pop out. The electric guitars in the song’s dénouement are slightly less strident. A violin that was previously buried in the mix – and entirely absent from the UK release – is suddenly much more prominent.

But you can switch between the two songs and barely notice the difference. Which is exactly what Swift wanted: The new recordings are intended to diminish the value of her original master tapes.

The star lost control of those recordings in 2019 when her former record label, Big Machine, was bought by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings.

The deal included the rights to Swift’s first six albums, enabling him to profit from sales and streams of the records.

Swift was incensed. Braun, a music executive who manages Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, was previously associated with her longtime nemesis, Kanye West. She saw the purchase as an act of aggression that “stripped me of my life’s work”.

“All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” she said.

Last year, Braun sold Swift’s catalogue to the investment fund Shamrock Capital for more than $300 million. According to the singer, Shamrock offered to work with her, but she declined when she learned that Braun would retain a financial interest in her music.

Swift, as the writer or co-writer of her music, still owns the publishing rights, which means she has power to veto some attempts to exploit her recordings.

Speaking to Billboard magazine last year, she said she had turned down “dozens of requests” for the use of Shake It Off every week since Braun had bought her back catalogue.

Now, she will exclusively licence her re-recordings to film and TV companies, effectively cutting Shamrock and Braun out of the picture.

Love Story 2021 – officially called Love Story (Taylor’s Version) is the first re-recording to emerge from the sessions. An expanded version of her album Fearless will follow in April.