Taylor Swift Drops New Version Of ‘Wildest Dreams’ — Why It Matters

Taylor Swift released a new version of her hit song “Wildest Dreams” on Friday after fans got the song trending on TikTok using the app’s “slow zoom” feature, allowing the singer to make more money off its resurgent popularity.

Swift said the song’s re-recording and subsequent release was inspired by its popularity on TikTok, saying on Twitter, “saw you guys got Wildest Dreams trending on tiktok, thought you should have my version." Swift will be able to collect a larger share of the royalties with the new version of “Wildest Dreams,” dubbed “Taylor’s version” than with the original version, which is part of a catalog of her past work recorded for the label Big Hit Machine that she’s sought unsuccessfully to buy control over. Swift will also be able to license the re-recorded song for TV, film and ad use, similar to what she did when she re-recorded “Love Story” for an advertisement for Match produced by actor Ryan Reynolds’ new agency. “Wildest Dreams” (Taylor’s Version) also beat out the original song’s Spotify record for single day plays, Variety reported, surpassing 2 million plays compared to its original counterpart’s 750,000, which had been trending on Spotify earlier this week because of TikTok trends. While the original version of the song gave producing credits to songwriter Max Martin, who also helped produce Swift’s “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space,” he was absent from the credits of the re-released song, which lists Swift, Shellback and Christopher Rowe as producers, according to Billboard.

Swift is re-recording some of her albums that were released by Big Hit Machine after the original recordings were obtained by producer Scooter Braun in his acquisition of the record company in 2019. Swift said she had been trying to buy back the masters of her songs for years from the record company but that they would only offer to have her re-sign and “buy back” one of her older albums for each new album she would create for them. Swift said once Braun took control of her master recordings, he had blocked her from using them during performances and in projects like her 2020 Miss Americana Netflix documentary. Braun has since sold the masters of Swift’s first six albums for $300 million to private equity firm Shamrock Capitol.

Taylor’s next re-recorded album release will be Red, which she teased back in August. Red (Taylor’s Version) will include the original 16 tracks featured on the 2012 album, along with 14 other bonus songs that didn’t originally make the cut. That album is slated to be released on November 19. It is expected to be a top seller — Swift’s first re-recorded album, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), which launched in April, sold 291,000 units and gave Swift another number one album.

Taylor Swift Is On Her Way To Making Country Music History With Her Re-Recorded Albums (Forbes)