Just when Taylor Swift Nation thought they’d outsmarted their overlord, running wild with the semi-educated guess that the pop star’s next installment of her re-re-recording series would be 1989, surprise, we’re actually going back to 2012 first. On Friday, Swift announced that she’ll rerelease her Grammy-nominated fourth album, Red, this fall on November 19; it’s the second reissue following Fearless (Taylor’s Version), released in April. And to brace the weak-hearted for what’s on the horizon post–Thot Girl Summer, the news comes with a disclaimer that this one’s for the broken bitches on the mend. “Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person,†she wrote in a note to fans. “It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past.â€
And yet, she continues, she made peace with this particular era of her past while revisiting Red, her first flirtation with pop. “Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.†Like her first reissue, for Fearless, she’ll open the vault for Red — it’ll now include all 30 songs originally meant for the album, including one that she teases is “even ten minutes long.†Get your karaoke stamina up.
Update, September 30: Finally, some good supply-chain news! Taylor Swift told fans that her Red rerecording, four-disc vinyl and all, will now be out a week ahead of schedule, on November 12. “Can’t wait to celebrate the 13th with you and our new/old autumn heartbreak album 🧣ðŸ˜ðŸŽ¥ðŸŽ¥,†she wrote. Go ahead and request the day off now to recover from that ten-minute cut of “All Too Well.â€