Swift’s world tour, which has been playing to sold-out stadiums since March and is expected to sell well over $1 billion in tickets by the time it ends next year, has broadened her overall catalog offerings in general. At various times this year, at least ten of her albums, including the originals, were on the Billboard 200, the magazine’s flagship albums list.
But every time Swift released a re-recorded album, the corresponding original version suffered. In the year following the release of “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” sales of the original fell 20 percent in the United States, according to Luminate, the tracking service that provides data for the Billboard charts; the original “red” dropped by about 45 percent. Neither is on the Billboard 200 as of 2021.
Jaime Marconette, senior director of music insights and industry relations at Luminate, noted how powerful this impact can be from week to week. In May, Swift said she would release a new “Speak Now” in eight weeks. “This announcement,” Marconette said, “immediately resulted in a 75.7 percent increase in overall consumption over the original version.” But as soon as “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” came out, the original dropped. Comparing a 14-week period before and after the new version, the original version fell by 59 percent.
In the latest charts, the new “Speak Now” is at number 18. The old version, which was last at number 191, had completely disappeared from the charts.
Statistics like these call into question the value of Shamrock’s investment, which is estimated to be more than $300 million. At least in the short term, there’s no doubt that Swift’s rerecordings have greatly toned down the originals. But it can take years before it is clear whether there is a lasting effect. A spokeswoman for Shamrock said no one at the company was available to discuss the matter.
Swift is also expected to make more money from her new recordings than her old ones, thanks to a deal she negotiated with Universal Music, Republic’s parent company, that gave her ownership rights to her recordings.