How Taylor Swift Rejuvenated 'Red'
Credit: Beth Garrabrant
Back in June, Taylor Swift announced that her 2012 album ‘Red’ would be the next of her albums to be re-released, as part of her plans to re-claim ownership of her music after Scooter Braun acquired and sold the rights to her first six albums.
The announcement thrilled fans and arrived with the news that the album would be 30 tracks long, including all the songs that were meant to be released in the original album. The release would also include a 10 minute track.
In anticipation of the release, Swift delivered a blast from the past when she shared a video reenactment of an old Tumblr post in which she raves about the Autumn season. In the video, she can be seen writing never-before-heard lyrics in a notepad, prompting rumours about a ‘Red’ bonus track. That bonus track was in fact a 10 minute version of ‘All Too Well’. She also shared a video snippet of the album’s title track accompanied by various pieces of red clothing and accessories.
When November 12th arrived, Swift’s fans were treated to the re-recorded album, plus ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’ - the 10 minute feature starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien. The film release was celebrated with a star-studded premiere at AMC Lincoln Center in New York City. Swift also appeared on SNL the weekend of release, performing alongside the short film and taking part in the program’s skits.
We’d be here for hours if we went into all the Easter eggs that eagle-eyed fans have detected in the short film. Some of our favourites include the 1989 Mercedes Benz featured in the video - a nod to Swift’s album ‘1989’, which followed on from ‘Red’ in 2014. If you’re unfamiliar with the famous scarf lyric from ‘All Too Well’, this explainer should help. A gift box containing the iconic red scarf plays a role in both the ‘All Too Well’ film, and in the video for the previously unreleased track ‘I Bet You Think About Me’ - first, it appears at Sink’s character’s 21st birthday, later, it’s being gifted by Swift herself.
The film also mimics a number of moments captured by paparazzi during Taylor Swift’s relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal - which in case you’ve been living under a rock - is widely understood to be the inspiration behind ‘Red’. Fact-checking fans were also quick to note that the ages of O’Brien and Sink - 30 and 19 - mirror Swift and Gyllenhaal’s ages at the time of their relationship.
With ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’, Swift picked up over 90.8 million Spotify streams in one day, dethroning her ‘Folklore’ album as the most-streamed album in a day by a female in Spotify history. She also broke the record for the most-streamed female in a single day in Spotify history. ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’ was the top trending video on YouTube with over 14 million views by the morning following its release. It also briefly sat as the top rated video on Letterboxd.
Since last week, Swift has also released ‘All Too Well (Sad Girl Autumn Version) - Recorded At Long Pond Studios’ and a recording of the very first live performance of ‘All Too Well’, captured at AMC 13 theater in front of just 400 fans.To be frank, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s even more layers to the ‘Red’ narrative by this time next week.
It would have been easy enough to re-record ‘All To Well’ and leave it at that, but with new tracks, filmed content, and the help of her dedicated and observant fans, Taylor Swift has found a way to make an old release feel pretty close to new.
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