Few artists will ever reach the sales numbers that Taylor Swift has racked up over the course of her career — and even fewer will ever do it two times over.
What started as a passion project to reclaim her master recordings is now a cultural phenomenon. Supported symbiotically by her blockbuster Eras Tour — which reportedly made the pop star a billionaire in October 2023 — the “Taylor’s Version” re-recording project both caters to the nostalgia of O.G. Swifties while roping in new ones, breathing a second commercial life into albums that were already wildly successful upon their original releases between 2006 and 2017.
Kicking off in April 2021 with the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Swift’s years-long project has raked in millions in sales and billions in streams, while also affecting the value out of the original editions of her first six albums. The undertaking has been so successful, in fact, that major labels are actively working to avoid becoming the next “Big Machine,” with Billboard reporting that outlets like Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have started overhauling contracts for new signees and demanding that artists wait an unprecedented 10, 15 or even 30 years to re-record releases after departing their record companies.
Part of Swift’s secret formula for scoring so big with each Taylor’s Version is her inclusion of “From The Vault” tracks, or songs that she initially wrote for each album but ultimately left off of their final track lists. These previously unreleased time-capsule songs have given the superstar a second chance at topping the charts, as well as more opportunities to collaborate with other artists, be it Phoebe Bridgers on Red (Taylor’s Version)‘s “Nothing New,” Paramore’s Hayley Williams on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)‘s “Castles Crumbling” or a litany of country stars on Fearless.
Keep reading to see the first-week traditional album sales of every “Taylor’s Version” re-record (so far), plus how they compare to their original counterparts below:
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