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Nov 11, 2021The new Red is even bigger, glossier, deeper, casually crueler. It’s the ultimate version of her most gloriously ambitious mega-pop manifesto.
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Nov 11, 2021This re-recording is a better, brighter version of a terrific pop album. Red is dead. Long live Red (Taylor's Version).
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Nov 15, 2021A collection of [new-to-us] songs that doesn’t have a real dud in the bunch.
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Nov 16, 2021Red (Taylor’s Version) has a happy, free, lonely, and, yes, confused vibe; quoting “22” feels appropriate in this case—it doesn’t get old, it just gets an incredible upgrade.
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Dec 2, 2021Truth is that this is now the definitive version of Red. It may also ensure that the good old boys who casually sold her music, seemingly out of a mixture of greed and spite, won’t get one red cent from Red, and it proves you can take a masterpiece and make it sound even better.
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Nov 17, 2021While the two versions of “All Too Well” are the most obvious examples of that skill, it’s the editing over the entirety of Red that elevates it from an album that seemed destined to be remembered as a transitional work in Swift’s catalog into a confident, refined album that demands inclusion in the pop canon.
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Nov 15, 2021Red – both in its original form as well as with these welcome additions – is an absolute triumph.
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Nov 12, 2021As ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ shows, this is an exercise in catharsis. Leafing back through the storybook of our own formative years, we feel it all.
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Nov 11, 2021Red (Taylor’s Version) is a highly rewarding listen for fans both casual and manic, bolstered by its excellent source material and Swift’s steady hand in rewriting her own looping history, with a few thrilling footnotes tacked on. ... Red 2.0 is another towering victory, which should be coveted by fans as Swift is surely already onto the next re-recording, furthering the worthwhile fight.
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Nov 11, 2021In anyone else’s hands, 30 tracks might feel bloated and indulgent, but Swift tempers length with careful curation, sequencing and a respect for what made the original Red such a superb pop record.
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Nov 15, 2021If you haven’t listened to Red, recently or ever, it’s well worth your time; in its ecstatic, expressive vocals, tart humor, vivid imagery, and tender attention to the nuances of love and loss, you’ll find everything that makes Taylor Swift great. ... Some of the vault tracks feel like they were left off of Red because they weren’t up to snuff.
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Nov 12, 2021Red has aged fairly well overall, even some of the lighter fare. ... The tracks from the vault here are stronger than those chosen for Fearless (Taylor’s Version).
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Dec 16, 2021Swift lays the groundwork of her songs with good chords in Red (Taylor’s Version), but she also enhances the songs’ power with catchy lyrics and melodies (“You fooound me / You fooound me / You fooound me-e-e-e-“).
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Nov 11, 2021It’s not an exercise of rethinking and tweaking old songs, but to take back ownership of her own music. The production here is a little sharper, with the instrumentation being brought further into focus.
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Nov 11, 2021Red (Taylor’s Version) adds satisfying hues of deep, gothic black.
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Nov 19, 2021The highlight of these is a ten-minute version of "All Too Well," a bitter ballad that was already one of the peaks of Red and is now turned into an epic kiss-off. This, along with excavated songs, are reason enough for Swift to revisit Red and they, not the re-recordings, are the reason to return to Red [Taylor's Version].
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2,647 out of 2962
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Mixed: 42 out of 2962
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Negative: 273 out of 2962
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Nov 12, 2021This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Nov 12, 2021OMG! She really elevated this album from a 10/10 to a 13/10. The vault tracks are sooo good too!!
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Nov 12, 2021