On Wednesday night (Aug. 9 – 8/9, get it?), Taylor Swift ended the final show of this U.S. leg of her Eras world tour by making fans’ wildest dreams come true: 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was officially on its way.
The fourth album in the superstar’s six-part re-recording project would be her landmark 2014 album, which will be released on Oct. 27 – nine years to the day that the original 1989 was unveiled. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) will follow Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version); the lattermost just scored the biggest debut on the Billboard 200 chart of the year upon its release last month, while the first two topped the Billboard 200 upon their releases in 2021.
Although all of Swift’s studio albums are blockbusters to some degree, 1989 is especially indispensable to her story. With hits like “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” “Style” and “Bad Blood,” the album represented as an embrace of full-on pop music, after years of expanding the sonic boundaries of country music.
“The 1989 album changed my life in countless ways,” Swift wrote while announcing the re-recorded version. And along with the artistic growth that the 2014 full-length represented, the album’s commercial performance was downright mind-boggling, a particularly dominant professional moment in a career full of them.
Ahead of the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) release this fall, let’s dig into nine key numbers that demonstrate both the blockbuster performance of 1989, and why fans are so excited about its re-recorded version.
Read more
