Taylor Swift reveals '1989' as next rerecorded album at Eras tour in LA
As Taylor Swift fans know, always study the numbers.
Swift is ready to unveil “Taylor’s Version” of her triumphant pop breakthrough, 2014’s “1989.” The album will be available Oct. 27.
The ever-clever Swift dropped the news on 8/9 (get it?), 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.”
She smiled and walked away from the mic with her guitar over her shoulder as the crowd squealed with excitement as she gestured to the video screen bearing the album information (on social media Swift called the release "my most favorite rerecord I've ever done").
"Taylor's Version" will contain 21 songs, five of them previously unreleased "from the vault."
And of course she offered one of the album's bonus tracks, "New Romantics," as a surprise offering.
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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).
The glossy “1989,” which won album of the year and best pop vocal album at the 2016 Grammy Awards, represented the demarcation line in Swift’s evolving career, which started to slide from country to pop with 2012’s “Red.” With Max Martin, Shellback, Jack Antonoff and Ryan Tedder handling much of the co-writing and production on hits including “Blank Space,” “Shake it Off,” “Out of the Woods” and “Bad Blood,” the album marked Swift’s complete transformation into a pop superstar.
The rerecorded “1989” is the fourth among Swift’s catalog to be issued as “Taylor’s Version,” an exercise she began to reclaim her artistic ownership after the sale of her original master recordings in 2020. “Fearless,” “Red” and the aforementioned “Speak Now” precede it.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Taylor Swift announces '1989' is the latest 'Taylor's Version' release
