Taylor Swift Keeps the Dream of Happily Ever After Alive on 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

What more can be said about Taylor Swift? At just 33 years old, she’s already solidified her place as one of the greatest storytellers of her era. Swift is an ultra-skilled worldbuilder, one who is able to transport listeners from the monotony of everyday life into shimmering wonderlands of her own creation, filled with treacherous villains, knights in shining armor and a heroine you can always count on to prevail. In the tradition of Hans Christian Andersen before her, Swift constructs castles in the sky for her listeners, ensuring that, even as they grow up, there will forever be a magical place they can return home to.

While where a star this big goes, naysayers inevitably follow, 2023 has proved to be a victory lap for Swift. Her expansive Eras Tour, which takes attendees on a fantastical journey through each of her albums every night, is set to become one of the highest-grossing ever when it’s all said and done. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour recently became the highest-grossing domestic concert film ever, tallying a whopping $200 million so far at the worldwide box office—and a countless number of “Cruel Summer” in-theater sing-a-longs. That’s not to mention the success of Swift’s decision to re-record her first six albums, the masters to which she does not own, following a very public dispute with former label Big Machine Records and Scooter Braun. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is the fourth—and perhaps most-anticipated—of those re-releases, thanks to its coveted status by many fans as her best work to date.

1989, originally released on October 27th, 2014, marked Swift’s transition from girl-next-door country crooner to full-fledged pop star. Like trailblazing country-pop royalty Shania Twain and Faith Hill before her, it’s a path that many have trekked—but none quite as successfully as she managed. While the album’s beloved 2012 predecessor, Red, laid the groundwork for the shift, 1989 was the moment that Swift’s pop appeal became undeniable.

She recruited producer Jack Antonoff for the project, a decision that would prove to be life-altering—and blossom into a collaboration that’s still going. In the decade since 1989, Antonoff would go on to provide writing and production for every one of her subsequent album releases. Along with Antonoff, 1989 was co-executive-produced by pop legend Max Martin (who has been absent from Swift’s Taylor’s Version series so far) with the support of an A-list team that also included Shellback, Ryan Tedder, Nathan Chapman and Imogen Heap. The project was a smashing success, spending 11 weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart, and it went on to win Album of the Year at the Grammys.

Like the rest of Swift’s re-recordings, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is faithful to its source material. There’s still the wide-eyed amazement and throbbing synths of “Welcome to New York,” the triumphant saxophone line of “Shake It Off,” the frank 20-something lust of “Style.” “New Romantics” and “Wonderland,” both fan favorites from the 1989 deluxe version, sound as endearingly fanciful as ever, while Swift and Kendrick Lamar’s “Bad Blood” remix remains a match made in radio heaven.

But it’s the “From the Vault” tracks that make this re-recording Swift’s best yet. There’s “Slut!,” a lovestruck, ‘80s-esque track that, like its twin flame “Blank Space,” embraces the singer’s boy-crazy media reputation—though it leans more into its own tongue-in-cheek chorus (“And if they call me a slut / You know it might be worth it for once”). “Suburban Legends,” meanwhile, is a nostalgia-inducing portrait of 2010s Tumblr culture, where the everyday magic of sleepy residential streets and high school parking lots reigned supreme, and “Say Don’t Go” is a heart-pounding uptempo plea for one more try to a lover who’s already halfway out the door. “Now That We Don’t Talk” is an inevitable instant classic in Swiftian lore, with its frantic disco grooves and hyper-specific digs (“I don’t have to pretend I like acid rock / Or that I’d like to be on a mega yacht / With important men who think important thoughts”). And “Is It Over Now,” widely viewed as a follow-up to “Out of the Woods,” is a gut-wrenching power ballad that sees the singer at her absolute finest.

1989 (Taylor’s Version) is a sparkling ode from an artist in her prime to an album that played a significant role in paving her way there. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” Shakespeare mused in Henry IV, Part 2, commenting on the painful existence of those in positions of power. It’s a memo that Taylor Swift must not have gotten. In her kingdom, ruling has never sounded so fun.

Elizabeth Braaten is a writer from Houston, Texas.