翻譯：Nomanlandever

In the summer of 2019, Taylor Swift took to Tumblr to announce that her former record label, Big Machine, had sold her masters to a company backed by music exec Scooter Braun. As a songwriter, Swift still held her publishing rights, but without influence over the masters, she’d lost a measure of control, like the ability to choose when her recordings could be used in film or advertising. But she wasn’t going down without a fight—she was going to re-record her entire diScography, and this time, she’d own the masters. The news sparked countless questions: Would she reimagine older songs, as she had in the past? Where would she start? How would she release the music? After making its debut in a dating app commercial starring Ryan Reynolds, the very first re-recorded song, Swift’s 2008 hit “Love Story,” is here.

2019年夏天，Taylor Swift在Tumblr平臺上宣布，她的前唱片公司Big Machine將她的專輯賣給了一家由音樂總監(jiān)Scooter Braun支持的公司。盡管作為詞曲作者，Taylor仍擁有自己的出版權，但由于對母帶沒有影響力，她失去了一定程度的控制，比如不能選擇她的音樂被公司用于電影或廣告的時間。但她不會不戰(zhàn)而敗的——她要重新錄制她前六張專輯。這一次，她將掌控自己的母帶。此消息引發(fā)了無數(shù)的疑問：她會重新構思老歌嗎，正如她以前有這樣做過？她從哪首歌開始錄？她將怎么發(fā)行重錄的歌曲？在Ryan Reynold代言的約會軟件廣告中首播后，第一首重錄的歌曲，重磅來襲，便是她2008年的熱單《Love Story》。

This new recording largely remains faithful to the original, as if determined to make Braun’s masters obsolete. Aside from minor changes—the production is slightly more restrained, and Swift’s mature vocals are subtler, with no trace of country twang—it’s hard to tell the difference. This is the kind of endeavor that a detail-oriented person like Swift excels at: She employed the same fiddle player and backup singer from the original record, reunited the members of her touring band from the time, and doubled down on her lucky number 13 (it has been 13 years since the release of the original Fearless, while the new version’s announcement date and release date each add up to 13). If most mortal millennials tried to recreate our teenage creative endeavors, we would be sharing Twilight fan fiction or painfully awkward YouTube dance videos. It speaks to Taylor’s wunderkind status that she can revisit the work of her teen self without embarrassment.

這次重錄版很大程度上忠于原錄版，似乎決心讓Scooter Braun手上的母帶過時。除了一些細微的變化——制作更加克制，Taylor成熟的嗓音更加精湛，沒有鄉(xiāng)村音樂的痕跡——很難區(qū)分兩者之間的區(qū)別。這正是像Taylor一樣講究細枝末節(jié)的人擅長做的：她使用的小提琴手，和聲歌手都是原班人馬，與她當時的巡演樂隊成員重聚，堅守了她的幸運數(shù)字13（原版《Fearless》發(fā)行至今已有13年，新版本的官宣日期和發(fā)行日期加起來正好等于13）。如果大多數(shù)00后試圖重新回顧我們十幾歲時的青春創(chuàng)作，我們可能會分享《暮光之城》的同人小說或令人尷尬的YouTube舞蹈視頻。這也證明了Taylor的神童地位，她可以不帶尷尬地重新審視自己的青春作品。

Swift is also invested in reinvention, and her last few albums are almost antithetical to who she was on Fearless. She now sings about love with skepticism and remove; she drinks wine and alludes to sex; she delves into self-doubt and takes accountability for selfishness. But before that, she was a brash teenage girl unafraid of the intensity of her romantic desire, and though “Love Story” isn’t her best song, it illustrates her imaginative power (she wrote it, she’s said, before she had any “knowledge of what love was”). There is something wonderfully audacious about a teen girl rewriting the most famous Shakespearean tragedy as, well, a love story. Now, years later, “Love Story” becomes another type of performance: an adult woman’s display of ownership and agency.

Taylor也著經心打造了再創(chuàng)造方面，她之后發(fā)行的幾張專輯幾乎站在了《Fearless》里的Taylor的對立面?，F(xiàn)在，她唱的愛摻雜著懷疑和疏遠，喝著酒，隱晦地談論性；她深陷自我懷疑中，為自己的私欲買單。但在這之前，她是一個不懼怕強烈浪漫欲望的魯莽少女。盡管《Love Story》不是她最好的歌，但這首歌展現(xiàn)了她強大的想象力(她說，這首歌是她在“掌握愛是什么”之前寫的)。一個十幾歲的女孩把莎士比亞最著名的悲劇改編成一個愛情故事，這是非常大膽的。多年后的今天，《Love Story》變成了另一種表現(xiàn)形式:成年女性對所有權和代理權的展現(xiàn)。