Taylor Swift Reveals Reputation Re-Recording May Never Be Released

Taylor Swift’s re-recording project may be coming to a premature end. The pop star revealed the big news in an open letter on her website published May 30. The celebratory note revealed that Swift had finally gained ownership over all of her music after losing the rights to her first six albums in 2019. While it’s an uplifting update for Swift, there’s also a bittersweet element for her fans who have been waiting for her to re-release Reputation and Taylor Swift.

In her message, Swift wrote that because she now owns all her albums, she may not release the re-recorded versions of the two albums she had yet to give the Taylor’s Version treatment. In particular, she’s doubtful Reputation (Taylor’s Version) will see the light of day, sharing that she had already been struggling to re-record her darkest album.

“Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it,” Swift wrote in her letter. “The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to re-make it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposefully misunderstood, the desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in the first six that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it.”

However, Swift did tease that she may put out the unreleased “From the Vault” tracks for Reputation, which she first described as “fire” in a 2023 interview. “There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch,” Swift promised.

While Reputation (TV)’s future is murky, Swift did confirm that her self-titled debut album is totally ready to go if she decides to re-release it. And she added that there’s still hope for potentially revisiting the Reputation era down the line.

“I’ve already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now,” Swift wrote. “Those two albums can still have their moment to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”