Taylor Swift has released her hotly anticipated 1989 (Taylor’s Version) album, the latest drop in her continued work to re-record her previous albums.
In a love letter to Swifties everywhere, the prologue presents “with gratitude and wild wonder” her version of 1989. The Lover songstress has taken the opportunity to write about the zeitgeist of the time when she recorded the original version of the songs, in 2013/2014.
She touches on the media’s obsession with her dating life, speculation around her female friendships – which ultimately has led to long-standing rumours around her sexual orientation. “The voices that had begun to shame me in new ways for dating like a normal young woman?
I want to silence them,” she says. “I had become the target of slut shaming – the intensity and relentlessness of which would be criticised and called out if it happened today. “It became clear to me that there was no such thing as casual dating, or even having a male friend who you platonically hang out with.