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Comment by eric_b | Hacker News Reader

Sort of tangential to the main point but - I find the new version of Fearless to be utterly lacking in "soul", "energy", "magic" or whatever you want to call it. The unquantifiable things that made the original so good are missing.

Sure, the remakes are competent and perhaps even better technically, but after listening to both side by side (song by song, new then old) - to me there is no comparison. I went online looking for reviews of the "new" album and I only found critics gushing over how great the remakes are. Did they even listen? Did they compare? Sounds like it was just a money grab justified with a healthy dose of moral outrage.

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I think it's possibly a bit rich to say that they didn't listen to it just because they had a different opinion.

I found the same thing on first listen, because a few things were subtly "wrong" (different). On second or third listen I love the new version, the production and vocals are just that little bit more polished in a fair few ways and I've gotten used to the slightly different mix. The new bonus tracks are pretty decent and it's nice to rediscover one of my favourite albums again.

It wasn't at all dissimilar to the effect I get when trying new headphones - I hate them for a little while, invariably. Then I get used to the new tonal balance and I learn to love the sound (if they're good headphones)

This phenomenon happens when you compare anything similar side to side.

Every time I fire up my calibrated color profile for my pc screen the colors look all wrong for a few minutes, even though I know they are the absolute "right" colors. So when it comes to topics with no rights or wrongs it's even more subjective, try with wine or whisky, TV screens, driving sensations in a car, sitting on a chair &c.

You'll always find someone to argue X is right and Y is wrong but in the end it's 100% subjective, you know you're in for a ride when people start talking about missing "soul", "magic", "unquantifiable and unmeasurable qualities"

I've had the same thing happen with live versions. The Pixies play "Where is my mind" very differently live, the vocal lines especially. First time I heard it was jarring because of the expectation and I didn't think it was good as the recorded version. Recorded version feels much worse now.

I hate, just hate, the album version of Kiss's God of Thunder, but they speed it up live and it sounds amazing. STP was amazing in the Fargo Civic Center which makes me think the person who mixed their album just hated life because it is noticeably inferior. On the other hand, Aerosmith has sounded like crap the two times I've seen them in concert.

It gets weird when you buy the import (for the US) versions of some songs. A lot of the Seattle bands sounded better to my ear on the versions sold in Europe. Japan is always an odd duck.

Tangential, but I've had a somewhat similar experience. Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" used to be my favorite song by the band, but somehow it was not one of their biggest hits. I had it recorded on tape and would listen to it daily. When I finally had money I bought the album it was in, and couldn't not believe how bland the song sounded. Turns out the cassette player I used to play the song was speeding it up - not super noticeable on its own, but obvious if you compared it directly, and the sped up version is MUCH better.

Thinking about it, that makes a lot of sense. I listen to some of the folks on YouTube that do covers of songs. A lot of them speed up the song and it sounds better than the original. I wonder what causes that.

Is there any software that would allow the minimal speed-up to make it enjoyable to listen to again? Also, maybe check some of the live versions. I get the feeling those might be a bit faster.

No, the problem isn't that the critics disagreed with me - the problem is that every critical write up I found said this new release was amazing, breathtaking, incredible, brave, [insert extreme superlative here] etc.

Not one review I found had the guts to say "eh, 15 is abysmal on the new record, especially compared to the raw energy and feeling of the original". It's OK to like the new version, but to say it's brave is really stretching belief.

It's like if a bunch of art critics fawned over Da Vinci making an exact copy of the Mona Lisa again. Sure, he might knock it out of the park the second time, but it's not the same.

I would be suspect of reviews in general - you'd need to find a group of experts without bias (if you want a review of the technical aspects) or of fans who have had enough time to "digest" both versions.

Amusingly enough someone like Apple could get answers over time by watching play counts of both for people who have both versions.

I wouldn't call it a money grab (TSwift already has a net worth of over $400 million. She's not worried solely about money).

I think it's more of a giant, public middle finger to Scooter Braun: "you won't sell me my masters? Fine, I have enough money and spare time to re-record them AND it won't hurt my career a bit, because my fans love me enough to buy something I've literally already released."

edit: TS probably worries some about money like most rich people, but it's likely not her primary motivation

I agree, but I feel you've missed the biggest part: if anyone wants to license the song for usage in a commercial / TV show / whatever, she can undercut Big Machine at any price she wants. There's a market now where there otherwise wouldn't be one. It's more like, "You won't sell them to me? I'll introduce a viable alternative to them and drive the value of both to zero."

IIRC, she can already deny licensing for her music -- even though Big Machine owns the publishing, she still owns the songwriter rights. There are about 9,000 exceptions (music law is hard), though, so I'm not 100% sure.

But you're right that she can regain licensing rights AND screw Big Machine at the same time by re-recording. I'm sure that crossed her mind.

She was given the opportunity to purchase her masters and she thought the price was too high. So they sold them to someone who would pay more.

It's definitely about the money to some extent - she wasn't willing to pony up what it would take to buy them.

That's one side of the story. TS's side is that Big Machine refused to sell her the rights unless she signed a new contract with them, which she didn't want to do.

Specifically, they wouldn't even negotiate unless she signed an NDA with a nondisparagement clause.

Which she wouldn't do, and I wouldn't either: never agree to nondisparagement without substantial consideration.

If this really came down to a nondisparagement clause that would be shocking. Getting to make an offer on the rights to some of the best selling music of all time is itself substantial. This explanation would also diminish the emotional/moral attachment Swift still claims to her earlier works -- owning the masters meant a lot to me, but not as much as this tumblr post? The world of celebrity is bizarre so I don't know, but I think there has to be more to it than that. Either that they were never for sale to her, or the price was too high.

“Person has a net worth of over $xxx million, they are not worried about money.” Stop and think that through. If this were true the banking industry as we know it would not exist. I’d like to think above some dollar amount I’d stop worrying about money and just do what I love, but who knows? I’ll tell you when I make my first $400 million.

I think there are probably more people that make ~$5-10 million and chill out than there are people north of $100 million. Lots of people likely do keep doing productive things that they enjoy, without the number mattering much.

People at the top of banking are likely motivated by things like status and winning as much as by how many millions they have.

If you're the type to chill out when you've hit a certain amount you're unlikely to climb to $100m - as you've already chilled out long before. Bill Waterson vs Jim Davis.

My intended meaning was that I believe it is likely that people motivated primarily by money tend to run out of that motivation once they have $10 million. It doesn't buy a yacht or a mansion in the most famous places, but that's about it.

Fair. I'm just saying she's probably not ONLY motivated by earning more money to feed her cats. If it was all about a cash grab, she'd be releasing more new music, which would (presumably) sell better than re-treads of her first 6 albums. She's already released two new pandemic albums, it's not like she's likely to run out of things to say anytime soon.

You Belong With Me... wow

There's such a difference in a young up and coming begging for a guy to acknowledge they love the outcast, to Taylor Swift singing the same song.

They always tell you in vocal lessons that so much of a song has to do with feeling. For people like most of us on HN, that makes absolutely 0 sense, and for many decades I've never been able to understand that... until now. Same person, different life experiences tugging on the same song, and it hits like a ton of bricks.

I gave both a listen after reading this comment. To my ear, the difference is just that her voice much more mature as a 31 year old than it was when the song released 12 years ago and she was 19, and that naturally makes it harder to believe the small-town highschool themed lyrics. Her voice is too deep to sound like a teenager anymore.

I've always found this apparent in Johnny Cash's covers, like "Hurt", "One", "Big Iron", or "If you could read my mind". He manages to add a different feeling to the song that changes the backstory it's suggesting. I recommend a listen and comparison against the originals if you're interested in the phenomenon.

Johnny Cash's Hurt is one of my fav. songs/versions ever. I listened to the original, and many other versions, but that one is just a few steps above

[Not a Taylor Swift fan or hater]

There is a common sequence of events in creator-driven popular entertainment, where an author or musician becomes too big to edit (or produce, if you prefer). The later works have a tendency to be bigger, looser, and lacking the focus that characterized the earlier works.

Oft-cited examples: Steven King, Anne Rice, Tom Clancy, Alanis Morrissette, Tori Amos, Maroon Five, Aerosmith.

I don't know whether this has happened to Taylor Swift, but it's certainly a plausible explanation.

This cuts both ways. In music particularly, inexperienced acts may not have much choice in producer, and production can radically change things. Sometimes what you hear later is the artists own voice, for good or for ill. Possible example, strings arrangements on Tom Waits early albums.

George Lucas.

Ultimately any re-creation is going to have differences from the original. Many fans are going to be attached to that original for various reasons. Even seemingly objective "improvements" are going to grate against the nostalgia for the original.

One example I'm familiar with is the Catch-22 album Keasbey Nights. This was a ska-punk album recorded in 1998 and is one of my favorite albums of all time. The songwriter and lead singer from the band, Tomas Kalnoky, left the band shortly after the album was released. He eventually formed the group Streetlight Manifesto. In the mid-200s, Victory Records was going to re-release the album. Instead, Streetlight Manifesto re-recorded the album to fix all the things Kalnoky didn't like about the original. It's still very similar but has less charm to me than the original.

I think it was more than a money grab- I think it was a giant middle finger as well to the company.

> giant middle finger as well to the company.

How dare the people who supported, developed, and promoted a young performer get a return on their investment.

Uh, the people who supported developed and promoted her got, 300 mln when they sols the company and 11 years of revenue of her. Ive seen the rest of their artists and Ill assume like 90% of revenue came from T.Swift. A smart move is to not piss off the client who basicly is your whole cashflow.

Hey man, I don't have a horse in this race. But I asked my friend, she says you are dead wrong >:(

I've listened to Glenn Gould's first and last Goldberg Variations dozens of times each, probably hundreds for the first one (I had a CD back when that was a thing).

I still couldn't tell you which one I like better. I'm very glad they both exist.

I haven't listened to the new Fearless, more of a Reputation guy anyway, so I don't know if it's directly comparable.

But what she's doing is smart. More power to her.

I agree - they're definitely different from the Big Machine versions and no where near as lively or enjoyable (and I'm a Taylor fan). Seems like they were all recorded in one day one after the other just to pump them out.

   She wears high heels
   I wear sneakers
   She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers

Doesn't quite hit the same when sung by a 30 something.

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