By the time Taylor Swift turned 20, she had written not one but two hit albums of love songs. Songwriting came very naturally to Swift. She became an active songwriter at age 13 and "earned the respect of some of Nashville's biggest writers. She had a forensic obsession with love and "studied and observed love." She sold out stadiums with songs about Romeo and Juliet, popular girls dating cheerleaders, and her intense infatuation with a man named Stephen. Today, still writing witchy ballads set in "folkloric forests" and singing serenades about sex in her hometown, Swift is "the best CEO in music" and a consummate romantic.

Early in her career, these two aspects of her persona, the daydreaming girl in love and the assertive up-and-coming mogul, seemed contradictory to some. She is so naïve when it comes to dating, but so confident when it comes to business ....... But that duality is part of the reason she has been so successful. Here was a teenager who could express the emotional struggles of adolescence in stimulating and concise lyrics. She expressed her emotions and inspired her fans. She marketed her early work with coded messages in her liner notes, and in 2008 she offered "Easter eggs" on MySpace and YouTube. In doing so, Swift not only legitimized the experience of unrequited love, she created a serious business out of a mania for infatuation that society considered fundamentally unserious. Years before "girlboss" became a (ultimately reductive) term for female leadership, Swift's girliness was her superpower, and she understood how to deploy it.

That second part scared people away. Despite her success, affinity, and fandom, she became the target of haters who, like many young female artists, could not stop hating, hating, hating on her. Eventually, she became a "national lightning rod for slut scorn." (5]

That is why her latest album, Fearless (Taylor's Version), is monumental. Re-recording and re-releasing six of her early albums is an argument that, yes, artists should own the rights to their work. But something else is also happening: by reintroducing these albums, Swift is separating her music from the (sexist) media narrative that followed her during her adolescence, and encouraging listeners and critics to interact with the same songs today with less gender bias She is. Listeners who previously did not consider her a feminist (for whatever sexist reasons) cannot deny the feminist nuances that come with being an industry spokesperson for artists' rights.

Given these two key aspects of Swift's persona-romantic confessionalism and auteurism-Fearless will hit differently in 2021: more than three years after the MeToo reckoning, women have put an end to being called "too emotional." Creators like Emerald Fennell, director of Promising Young Woman, have tackled the "crazy" label with TV shows like Killing Eve, I Love Dick, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Today Swift confronts her anger head-on with new songs from her albums "Folklore" and "Evermore," including "Mad Woman," "Tolerate It," and "No Body, No Crime." But classics like "Tell Me Why," "You're Not Sorry," "Picture to Burn," "Should've Said No," and "Dear John" tell a similar story. The lyrics were ahead of their time, overshadowed in 2008 by tabloid frenzy and Swift's "serial dating" narrative.

An unreleased song from "The Vaults," cut from the original Fearless album and supposedly about her ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas, was released in 2008. It is not known how the song was received in 2008 (as trolls say, it was probably "another man-hating hit song"). But in 2021, we are not bothered by the drama created by the media. Sophie Turner (Jonas' wife) shared a new song on Instagram Stories, writing, "It's not NOT a bop," which Taylor also shared.

At this stage in her career, and with social media becoming her primary means of getting the word out to her fans, Swift is finally in control of the narrative. In a way, the re-release is not just about regaining ownership of her songs. It is about regaining ownership of her story.

Now, by sharing "Fearless (Taylor's Version)," Swift is telling the story of a powerful 31-year-old businesswoman who was once a teenager in love. Swift is providing an entry point into her music for an audience that may not have been exposed to Swift for the first time: in Friday's Houston Chronicle, one writer recanted his "Taylor Swift haters" and wrote: "Whereas I buried my feelings beneath a brave face and sarcasm Taylor Swift reveled in her emotions and proudly brandished them in catchy hooks. And I hated her for the way she embraced a part of my life that I felt I couldn't have."

There is time to be grateful. Enough years have passed to forget the "petty" minutiae that once overwhelmed Swift Verse. When "Red" is re-released, few will remember their days in Hyannis with the Kennedys; no one will care that some of the "girl squad" featured prominently in the 1989 "Bad Blood" music video have since disperse (after all After all, people change and drift apart). And when Reputation makes a comeback, people may finally think of the album as an album, not as a response to that Kim and Kanye situation.

Without the early self-mythologizing, it is hard to see how Swift could have reached stratospheric success. But if this re-recording project has proven anything, it is that her music is timeless. And Swift is always ahead of her time.