The 2020 American Music Awards were last night, and Taylor Swift came home with one of the evening’s biggest awards: Artist Of The Year. Swift wasn’t there to accept her award live, but she had a good reason for that: In a pre-taped video, she revealed she was busy re-recording her old music.
Swift, of course, does not own the rights to the albums she released on Big Machine — Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation — but beginning at the start of November, she was officially allowed to re-record the songs. Swift has already gotten started on that process, as she explained in her acceptance video, saying, “The reason I’m not there tonight is I’m actually re-recording all of my old music in the studio where we originally recorded it, so it’s been amazing and I can’t wait for you to hear it.”
BIG congratulations to @taylorswift13! Shes taking home the award for Artist of the Year! #AMAs pic.twitter.com/XfBOTPU5Nc
— American Music Awards (@AMAs) November 23, 2020
Elsewhere in the video, she said, “This is a fan-voted award, which means so much to me. You guys have been beyond wonderful all the years of my career, but especially this one, when we’ve been so far apart. We haven’t been able to see each other in concert, but I still feel really connected to you through the music and your reaction to Folklore and all of the ways in which your imagination honored that album.”
Watch Swift’s acceptance speech above and revisit our review of Folklore here.