It’s been about two months since Taylor Swift released Fearless (Taylor’s Version), which came out on April 9. The album has earned some chart accolades, but how well is it performing compared to the original Fearless album?
Rolling Stone took at look at the streaming data over the course of the two months since the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version). While the new album naturally out-streamed the original in weeks immediately after its release, as the dust has settled on Taylor’s Version, the streaming numbers between the same songs on their respective albums aren’t that different from each other. The original versions of “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” are now out-streaming their remakes, while album cuts like “Forever & Always” and “Hey Stephen” are besting their ancestors. As the publication put it, this is “a good indication that die-hard Swifties are still streaming Taylor’s Version, while casual listeners may be more likely to cue up the original.”
While Taylor’s Version may not have buried the original album, it seems to at least be having a negative impact on its streams. As Rolling Stone notes, streams of the original Fearless have increased by 10 percent over the past year, which is below the 15-percent increase in streams industry-wide. That’s also less than the increase other Swift albums have experienced, like the 27-percent jump Swift’s self-titled debut as experienced and the 47-percent increase of Speak Now.
Check out more Fearless data here.