Taylor Swift finally revealed why we haven’t seen Reputation (Taylor’s Version) yet — are you ready for it?
In a heartfelt letter to fans, Swift excitedly announced that she regained control of her music, purchasing her recordings from the investment firm Shamrock Capital. “I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but never owned until now,” she wrote. “All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy.”
While the news was certainly a reason to celebrate, it left fans with one major question: What about Reputation (Taylor’s Version), one of two albums left to re-record and release? (Fans have also been waiting for her to release her debut album, as well, but Reputation was largely speculated to be the next drop.)
Well, Swift came with answers and offered an update on the re-recording of the 2017 album, which fans have been feverishly waiting for ever since the last Taylor’s Version, 1989, in October 2023. “I know, I know,” she wrote, causing the ears of every Swiftie across the globe to perk up. “What about Rep TV? Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it.”
She continued: “The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off.”
That’s not to say that Swift won’t release the Reputation vault tracks — or her complete re-recording of her 2006 self-titled debut, which she confirmed is already in the can. “There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased Vault tracks from that album to hatch,” she said. “I’ve already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now. Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”
It’s important to note that this doesn’t kill the Debutation fan theory — that Swift would release both Reputation TV and the debut TV simultaneously. But neither appear to be imminent, as Swifties were anticipating (they most recently expected the announcement to be made during the 2025 AMAs).
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
Swift herself seemed to tease Reputation TV during the Eras tour, particularly during her first Miami show in October 2024, when she sported a new Reputation bodysuit — the only costume she hadn’t swapped since launching the tour in March 2023. She premiered “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version),” the first taste of the Reputation re-recording, on the Amazon Original series Wilderness in August 2023. It was featured on another series just last week, in the penultimate episode of The Handmaid’s Tale (star and executive producer Elisabeth Moss confirmed she’s a Swiftie).
Back in 2019, Swift spoke about Reputation in her Rolling Stone cover story, and how, despite it being dark and divisive, the album represented a period of happiness in her personal life. “The one-two punch, bait-and-switch of Reputation is that it was actually a love story,” she said. “It was a love story in amongst chaos. All the weaponized sort of metallic battle anthems were what was going on outside. That was the battle raging on that I could see from the windows, and then there was what was happening inside my world — my newly quiet, cozy world that was happening on my own terms for the first time.”
Swift first released Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in April 2021, following Scooter Braun’s multi-million-dollar acquisition of her original masters in 2019. She followed up Fearless TV with re-recordings of Red (November 2021), Speak Now (July 2023), and 1989 (October 2023).
Whether or not she ever releases Reputation TV and Taylor Swift TV, her re-recordings were highly influential to the music industry, encouraging other artists (including recently, John Fogerty), to do the same. “Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this flight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen,” Swift said.
But Swift regaining control of her recorded music is a massive, joyous achievement in itself, one that she joked she might celebrate by getting a shamrock tattooed on her forehead (please don’t).
From Rolling Stone US
