NEED TO KNOW Taylor Swift revealed the fate of Reputation (Taylor's Version) after announcing she'd bought back all her masters The star said that while her debut album is entirely re-recorded, she has yet to complete "a quarter" of Reputation Swift said there will, however, be a time "for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch" When Taylor Swift ended her social media hiatus with the surprising news that she’d regained control of her masters, her fans were thrilled for the pop superstar. Indeed, Swifties had been anticipating an announcement for some time — and it wasn’t that one. Though the acquisition marked the end of a nearly six-year saga for Swift, one question still lingered: Where is Reputation (Taylor’s Version)?

Since 2021, the Grammy winner, 35, has been releasing re-recorded versions of her first six albums in order to own the masters, as the original versions were sold without, she said, her knowledge or approval. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) came first in April 2021, setting an exciting precedent for fans; not only had Swift re-recorded the original album in full, but she’d also opened the “vault,” and included a number of songs written around the time the album was recorded, but never released. Taylor Swift with her first six albums.

TAS Rights Management She followed suit with her subsequent re-recordings of Red, Speak Now and 1989, and, according to fans who analyze her every move hunting for “easter eggs,” was making moves that hinted the release of Reputation (Taylor’s Version) was just around the corner. But now that she owns her masters, will she still release re-recordings of Reputation and her self-titled debut album? "I know, I know.

What about Rep TV? Full transparency: I haven't even re-recorded a quarter of it. The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it.

All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief," Swift wrote in an emotional statement posted on her website. "To be perfectly honest, it's the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn't be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or the photos, or videos.

So I kept putting it off. There will be a time (if you're into the idea) for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch." Taylor Swift performing in July 2023.

Mat Hayward/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management She added: "I've already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now. Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won't be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have.

It will just be a celebration now." The re-recording process began after music manager Scooter Braun purchased Swift's catalog from her former label, Big Machine Records, in 2019, before eventually selling it to Shamrock Capital the next year. A source close to contract negotiations told PEOPLE that the deal came about because of hard work from Swift’s team — and despite a recent report claiming Braun encouraged Shamrock to make the deal, the entrepreneur was not involved.

Taylor Swift performing on her Eras Tour in June 2024. Kevin Mazur/Getty “Contrary to a previous false report, there was no outside party who ‘encouraged’ this sale. All rightful credit for this opportunity should go to the partners at Shamrock Holdings and Taylor’s Nashville-based management team only,” the source says.

“Taylor now owns all of her music, and this moment finally happened in spite of Scooter Braun, not because of him.” It was already clear that Swift had made at least some progress in re-recording Reputation, as a snippet of “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” first premiered in August 2023 in a teaser for Wilderness. The song later appeared in the Apple TV+ docuseries The Dynasty: New England Patriots, and was recently played on an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. In a 2023 interview with Time, she teased the upcoming vault tracks for Reputation (Taylor’s Version) as “fire” and said she’d enjoyed revisiting the era.

“It’s a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure,” she said. “I think a lot of people see it and they’re just like, sick snakes and strobe lights.” All four of her re-releases topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, and her journey has helped usher in a new era of artists taking ownership over their work. Creedence Clearwater Revival rocker John Fogerty recently announced a new album of re-recorded CCR hits and told Rolling Stone that he’d wanted to name the record Taylor’s Version.

In 2022, Snoop Dogg also said that Swift inspired him to want to re-record his 1993 debut album Doggystyle, while 98 Degrees said the same in 2023. "I feel like, almost before Taylor did it, it was like, 'Oh, you're re-recording the masters,'" Drew Lachey said. "It was like, 'I'll just stick with the original' kind of thing.

When she did it and she was like, 'No, this is my music. I want to take ownership of it again,' people were like, 'Yeah Taylor!' Now, everybody's like, 'I want to re-record my masters and get it back out there.'

So, I feel like there's an acceptance and almost an alliance between the artists and the fans now to support the re-recorded masters." Swift opened up to Time about how the inspiration to re-record her albums actually came from Kelly Clarkson, who’d tell her, “Just redo it” whenever they’d run into one another amid her drama with Braun. “My dad kept saying it to me too.

I’d look at them and go, ‘How can I possibly do that?’ Nobody wants to redo their homework if on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away,” she said. “[But] it’s all in how you deal with loss. I respond to extreme pain with defiance.”