This November 12, Taylor Swift released her rerecording of her album Red, after much anticipation and many cryptic easter eggs. 

From start to finish, Taylor’s matured voice and beautiful lyricism tell many stories, each song building each other up. Starting off strong,“State of Grace”, the opening track is bright, with an edge, and heavy drums cutting through. It tells the story of an unexpected whirlwind romance with a bitter end. This song opens up the album well, presenting the themes of relationships and heartbreak perfectly. The next song on the album is its namesake, “Red”, transitioning the tone from heavy drums to a more pop, and resilient sound describing a past love and how it felt. Again the song presents a story of a passionate and quick love story. There is then a shift, as the album moves to “Treacherous”, the gentle voice and soft guitar this song bringing a fresh flavor to the palette.  The song tells the story of someone falling in love too quickly, and moving too fast, but still loving that person deeply. Unlike the previous songs on the album, there is no heartbreak in this song. There is then another dramatic change to one of Taylor’s most popular songs, “I Knew You Were Trouble”. These two songs were paired back to back to illustrate falling in love and knowing it’s a dangerous path to heartbreak, and then seeing those consequences come to fruition. The more confident tempo and pop sound delivers a more powerful hit than “Treacherous” and shows her anger. This anger leads into the song “All Too Well”, one of her most well known breakup songs. Her 10 minute version of the song has garnered even more attention, and quickly became her most streamed song on Spotify, showing the significance behind this song. Her slow build up in this song offers the perfect chance to experience the build up to the breakup, and the pain that comes with it. However the song has a slower, more gentle ending, leading to “22”. This song is for celebrations, and even mentions “making fun of our exes”. This song is next on the album because it shows her moving on, and healing. 

Her songs from the Vault further the story of this breakup, and love story. Her many feature artists on the album also bring a new layer to her story. The lyrics are poignant and show a more raw and vulnerable part of this album than what we first saw in 2012. The perfectly planned transitions show how thought out and well written this album is. She tells a moving yet relatable story.