Here's how 'Red (Taylor's Version)' outperformed original album in its first year

Beth Garrabrant

It's been a year since Taylor Swift unleashed Red (Taylor's Version) and, unsurprisingly, the album has outperformed the original in terms of sales, radio airplay and more.

Billboard crunched the numbers and found Taylor's newly rerecorded album sold 1.94 million units in its first year — far more than the 220,000 units her 2012 album sold in the same period of time. If you're looking at just album sales, though, the numbers are respectively 784,000 copies versus 17,000 copies sold. 

On the streaming side, Taylor's newer version of Red amassed over 1.5 billion streams, compared to the 280.6 million times fans streamed the original. But, one can argue streaming platforms have grown significantly since 2012, so it shouldn't be all that surprising.

Finally, the outlet looked into how radio stations received both albums and found that songs off of Red (Taylor's Version) were played significantly more than the original Red. Radio stations played the new album's songs 211,000 times in its first year of release, compared to the original Red's 38,000 plays.

Going further, the rerecorded version of "All Too Well" was played 14,000 times on the radio in its first year.  Billboard said the original version earned a "negligible number" between 2012 and 2013.

Taylor's rerecorded Fearless also outperformed its original version in its first year.

Now, all eyes are on Taylor to see which album she chooses to rerecord next: Taylor SwiftSpeak Now1989 or Reputation. Your move, Taylor!

Friday, November 11, 2022 at 4:00PM by Megan Stone Permalink