Have Taylor’s Version Re-Recordings Crowded Out the Originals?

With Taylor Swift’s re-recorded version of Speak Now topping the Billboard 200 albums chart and achieving the biggest week of 2023, the singer has pitted her new versions against the original versions she released through Big Machine Label Group in 2010. That could be seen as another blow for Shamrock Capital, which purchased Swift’s Big Machine catalog in 2020. But if Swift thought her re-recordings would erode the performance of the Big Machine originals, she was wrong — for the most part. The original versions owned by Shamrock did well through 2022 and haven’t shown much clear evidence of attrition until 2023, according to Billboard’s analysis of Luminate sales and streaming data in the United States.

Through 2022, Swift’s Big Machine catalog has performed roughly in line with industry trends. Take Swift’s 2008 album Fearless, for example: It generated on-demand audio streams of 230.5 million in 2019 and 345.3 million in 2022 — an increase of 49.8% over three years. Had the album’s streams grown in line with the industry’s annual growth in on-demand audio streams — 48.3% from 2019 to 2022 —Fearless would have had 341.9 million on-demand audio streams. That’s only a 1% variation.

The original version of Swift’s 2012 album Red did even better than Fearless, generating 283.5 million on-demand audio streams in 2019 and 484.7 million on-demand audio streams in 2022, about 19% greater than what would be expected. Had the album’s streams grown in line with the industry’s annual growth in on-demand audio streams — 17.3% in 2020, 12.7% in 2021 and 12.2% in 2022 — Red would have had 420.6 million on-demand audio streams.

At the same time, Swift’s re-recordings have done phenomenally well. Since the beginning of 2021, the three Taylor’s Version albums have accounted for 3.88 billion on-demand audio streams to the original versions’ 2.86 billion on-demand audio streams. The actual numbers are even more skewed in the Taylor’s Versions’ favor since the re-recordings of Speak Now were released on July 7 of this year and have a brief streaming history. Since 2021, Red (Taylor’s Version) has generated 2.6 times more on-demand audio streams than the original version, while Fearless (Taylor’s Version) has about 1.9 times as many on-demand audio streams.

All the work Swift did to promote her re-recordings, as well as the success of her Republic Records albums and her current U.S. tour, may have also helped sales of the original Big Machine catalog. The original version of Red has sold more albums — 26,000 — through week 28 of 2023 than in all of 2022 and is already close to surpassing sales numbers for calendar years 2019, 2020 and 2021. Speak Now has also surpassed last year’s album sales and is on track to beat annual sales from 2019 to 2021.

Of course, Shamrock does not enjoy the spoils of the three albums of re-recordings. Through week 28 of this year, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) have sold 2.23 million units in the United States. But these couldn’t be considered sales that were lost to Shamrock. Whether or not Swift re-recorded the three albums, Shamrock would benefit only from the sales of the original versions. And so far, it doesn’t appear the Taylor’s Version albums are crowding those out.

Streaming is a different story, though. There is some evidence that the Taylor’s Version reissues have led to a decline in streams for the original Big Machine albums. In the 18 weeks before the release of Red (Taylor’s Version) on Nov. 11, 2021, the original version averaged 9.7 million on-demand audio streams per week. In the 18 weeks after Red (Taylor’s Version) was released, the original version’s weekly on-demand audio streams declined 41% to 5.7 million.

And despite putting up decent streaming numbers through 2022, the original versions of Fearless and Red have underperformed expectations in 2023. The overall market’s on-demand audio streams grew 13.5% in the first 28 weeks of 2023. Had Fearless matched the market’s growth, the album would have generated about 296 million streams through week 28. Instead, the original version of Fearless had roughly 162 million streams — more than 45% below expectations. Red performed better but was also off the market’s pace. Through week 28, the original version of Red had 181.6 million on-demand audio streams — about 14% below expectations.

While the original versions have held up fairly well in purchases and, until this year, on-demand audio streams, the biggest loss is probably the lack of synch opportunities. Swift’s re-recordings have been used in a Match.com ad in 2020 (“Love Story [Taylor’s Version]”), the movie Spirit Untamed in 2021 (“Wildest Dreams [Taylor’s Version]”) and the movie DC League of Super-Pets in 2022 (“Bad Blood [Taylor’s Version], the only song from the album 1989 that has so far been re-recorded).

Ultimately, however, Swift’s re-recordings may be more responsible for her consumption boom than the original Big Machine versions. Swift’s annual on-demand audio streams more than doubled between 2019 and 2022 — from 3.12 billion to 7.85 billion. If she continues her current pace, her on-demand audio streams will increase more than 74% in 2023. The re-recordings have added to the deafening buzz around her Republic Records albums. The Big Machine originals are merely along for the ride.

Shamrock did not respond to Billboard's request for comment on this story.