Did Taylor Swift Succeed at Recreating Her Biggest Album?

That 1989 (Taylor’s Version) would eventually become the superior product of Taylor Swift’s dogged, years-long mission to re-record all her pre-Lover albums was determined a little over two years ago.

In September 2021, Swift unceremoniously dropped “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version),” a key 1989 track, in the middle of promoting her second rerecord, Red (Taylor’s Version). “Wildest Dreams (TV)” was so heartbreakingly beautiful and melancholic, and such an improvement upon the vaguely cheesy original, that it pretty much overshadowed all of the Red re-release for myself and many other fans at the time. (Yes, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” is a virtuosic breakup song and I know every word, but it’s depressing and it’s so damn long.)

That fall, I remember sitting in the passenger seat as my dad drove, patiently explaining to him why the biggest pop star in the world was going to such great lengths to produce doubles of her hits. I played him the original 2014 cut of “Wildest Dreams,” followed by “Taylor’s Version,” to show how, when she created the song again, she made it richer and better. Most crucially, Swift had made her version of the song even more compulsively listenable than the original, which—when your goal is to improve upon sterling pop hits that are already as addictive as checking your crush’s Twitter likes—is an incredibly tall order.

Read more at The Daily Beast.