15 February 2021
Newsdesk
Taylor Swift's re-recordings of her tracks from 'Fearless' will be eligible for performance Grammy awards.
The 31-year-old star - who had previously revealed plans to release new versions of her early records after Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings bought the writes to her back catalogue - is set to release a reworked edition of her 2008 LP, which comes with six brand new songs.
And the Recording Academy has stated that the re-recorded tracks, including 'Love Story', will only be allowed to be nominated for performance accolades, not songwriting awards.
A Grammys spokesperson told Billboard: “Current eligibility guidelines would allow for the new performances and albums to be eligible if they were recorded within the last five years. However, none of the older songs would be eligible for songwriting awards."
However, that doesn't apply to the six new tracks, which can be nominated for songwriting prizes as well.
Last week, the ’Shake It Off’ hitmaker announced the re-issue on social media, writing: "I'm thrilled to tell you that my new version of 'Fearless (Taylor's Version)' is done and will be with you soon.
"It has 26 songs including 6 never before released songs from the vault. 'Love Story (Taylor's Version)' will be out tonight."
The album is available for pre-order, and a hidden message in an accompanying note suggested it could drop in April.
In a lengthy statement, she added: "Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really *knows* that body of work.
"For example, only I know which songs I wrote that almost made the Fearless album. Songs I absolutely adored, but were held back for different reasons (don't want too many breakup songs, don't want too many down tempo songs, can't fit that many songs on a physical CD)."
