Pitchfork: Red (Taylor's Version)

[COOOK 76,406]

"Re-recorded in meticulous detail, along with a dozen songs cut from the 2012 original, Taylor Swift’s most pivotal album has still more to say about growing up and moving forward."

Spoiler

" If you haven’t listened to Red, recently or ever, it’s well worth your time; in its ecstatic, expressive vocals, tart humor, vivid imagery, and tender attention to the nuances of love and loss, you’ll find everything that makes Taylor Swift great. But the real draw for her main audience, who already know Red like the back of their hands, is the new material. Some of it is new only in the sense of being newly attached to this album or newly reclaimed by Taylor: “Ronan” was a one-off charity single in 2012; Little Big Town recorded “Better Man,” a stolen rearview glance on the drive away from toxic love, in 2016; and the venom-laced air kiss “Babe” was released by the country duo Sugarland in 2018. Most anticipated is an extended cut of a classic: “All Too Well,” a Red track with an outsize presence in Swift lore. "

" Just this year, a 17-year-old Olivia Rodrigo released her breakout smash, then borrowed liberally enough from Swift to grant her two writing credits—one of them retroactive—on her debut. Swift is too smart not to know that some of her listeners will make this connection. Whatever; she owns it. Ownership is, after all, this project’s raison d’être—ownership of master recordings, but also of personal and artistic history. You have to admire Swift’s pluck in standing so resolutely behind hers. Red, often lauded as Swift’s best album, is not perfect; it contains some of her great masterpieces (“Holy Ground,” “22,” “All Too Well”), but also some duds (while reviewing this record, I got through “Starlight” for maybe the first time since 2012). Red (Taylor’s Version) may be a commercial endeavor first, but that doesn’t mean it lacks an underlying artistic statement: that sometimes we must revisit our past, both the flattering and the less flattering bits, in order to get to our future. Swift won’t have any trouble finding companions for the road. "

Full review here.

Previous scores:

               

               

     

          

[Kim Petrus 355]

It was a pretty good review, interesting it got lower than original one tho

[RudraCNG 15,112]

6.5 to Reputation? 

[Taylucifer 5,154]

Pitchfork are... interesting

[flyaway 15,350]

26 minutes ago, RudraCNG said:

6.5 to Reputation? 

Well, it's her worst album

[SOON 4,147]

I hate pitchfork 

[badfaith 5,715]

I hope she does Speak Now next, literally one of the albums of my childhood

[Hyperobject 66,771]

I’m really enjoying this album a lot. state of grace is such a beautiful song, plus new tracks are great too. my only complain about the album is that mixing and vocals are very questionable at times.