The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

Taylor Swift releases Red (Taylor’s Version)

On November 12th Taylor swift released Red (Taylor’s Version), the album consisting of a total of thirty tracks resulting in the album’s length being 2 hours and 10 minutes long. Perhaps an album with 30 tracks and over 2 hours in listening time could be daunting for both listeners and musicians alike, but it lends itself to Taylor’s world building so successfully that the duration of the album no longer seems a little frightening when listening to it. Red is the second album, Fearless being the first that Taylor rerecorded and released in April this year, that Taylor has re-released this year and if how well-received it has been by her fans (and people who may not have necessarily listened to her music before, but still found themselves enjoying these revised versions) then it is incredibly exciting to see what she has in store for the future.

Taylor also managed to become the second woman in history to land 10 number one albums on Billboard’s 200 Chart, with the first being Barbra Streisand, on November 27th.  Billboard added that the Official Charts Company reported that Red (Taylor’s Version) accumulated 72,000 sales which remarkably beat the opening week tally of sales for the initial release of red in 2012 which had 62,000 sales.

The extended version (a 10 minutes and 13 seconds long track) of ‘All Too Well’ has also made its own headlines and broken records following the release of Red (Taylor’s Version), it became the longest number one hit in the charts ever after beating Don Mclean’s ‘American Pie (Parts I & II)’ at 8 minutes, 37 seconds as reported by Billboard’s twitter account. It is easy to see why the heart-breaking track is so popular when Taylor’s worldbuilding can make someone feel like they are in a way experiencing the events she’s depicting in her lyrics, but also enables people who have experienced similar events to feel as though they have someone, they are able to relate to and are therefore perhaps less isolated than they may have felt before.

Red (Taylor’s Version) could very easily be one of the best albums that has been released this year (2021), thanks to the emotional responses it induces from Taylor’s audience as well as the way the album is able to transport the listeners and use imagery to strengthen the feelings the lyrics throughout the album evoke.

By Bethany Ellis

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