Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for two weeks
“Fearless” was the first rerecorded album that Swift ever released.
The “Taylor’s Version” series was inspired by the sale of Swift’s masters to Scooter Braun in 2019, which she described as her “worst case scenario” in a passionate open letter. Swift decided to remake and rerelease her first six albums in a bid to reclaim ownership of her life’s work. (Braun later sold Swift’s masters to a private-equity company.)
In addition to faithfully recreating each tracklist, Swift decided to add never-before-heard songs “from the vault” that were written during the album’s original creative process but cut from the final product.
“I’ve spoken a lot about why I’m remaking my first six albums, but the way I’ve chosen to do this will hopefully help illuminate where I’m coming from,” Swift explained. “Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work.”
“For example, only I know which songs I wrote that almost made the ‘Fearless’ album,” she continued. “Songs I absolutely adored, but were held back for different reasons.”
Many were skeptical that the “Taylor’s Version” project would be embraced by fans, let alone achieve commercial success.
Those skeptics were forced to eat their words when “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” began to outpace the original on streaming platforms. According to Billboard, “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” earned more equivalent album sales in its first week of release than “Fearless” earned over the entire next year.
Four years later, in May 2025, Swift announced that she bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, giving her complete control over her musical catalog and rendering her “Taylor’s Version” project moot.
