Taylor Swift‘s Reputation has slithered its way back into the Billboard 200 albums chart at Number Five after the musician announced that she finally owns her entire catalog of music. The record previously spent four weeks at Number One following its 2017 release and has racked up 349 total weeks on the chart. It’s also the one album Swift hasn’t finished re-recording, though she doesn’t really need to anymore.
Last week, pre-masters victory, Reputation sat at Number 78 on the chart. The surge, per Variety, is the result of a 1,184 percent increase in album sales and a 125 percent increase in streaming, equivalent to 34.75 million streams.
Fans are basking in guilt-free listening sessions now that Reputation is in Swift’s sole possession. She purchased the album, along with the five that preceded it, from the investment firm Shamrock Capital. The firm itself ended up with her masters following a drawn-out series of sales that began with her former label Big Machine Records selling her catalog to Scooter Braun. Swift responded by setting off on a mission to cutting down the value in all of those albums by re-recording them.
But that fight is all over now. The new battle Swift faces is figuring out how to recapture Reputation for its Taylor’s Version release, if it ever received one in the same capacity as her previous albums 1989, Speak Now, Fearless, and Red. “I know, I know. What about Rep TV?” Swift wrote in her letter to fans announcing her ownership win. “Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it.”
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“The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it,” she continued. “All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off.”
Swift shared loose plans to release the extra songs that were planned for the re-recording. “There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased Vault tracks from that album to hatch,” she said. “I’ve already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now. Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”
