Taylor Swift has been releasing her re-recorded albums for nearly two years now, and there is now a tried-and-true formula she follows. The singer has been fairly consistent when it comes to the manner in which she promotes these sets, and it’s worked brilliantly. But with her forthcoming drop, she might want to reconsider how she’s been doling out the tunes and aim for more major hits.
For the first three of her re-recorded album releases, Swift has largely—but not entirely—stayed away from promoting singles with traditional campaigns. Sometimes she’d share a tune or two before a full-length appears, but most of the music is only available once the full package hits. In less than two months, Swift will return with 1989 (Taylor’s Version), the slightly reworked take on her pop album 1989. The set is scheduled to drop in late October, which isn’t very far away, even if it feels that way to Swifties. Now would be a great time to mix things up.
1989 was Swift’s biggest album when it comes to singles. The title produced three No. 1 hits on the Hot 100, with “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Bad Blood” all rising to the top spot. Two other cuts, “Style” and “Wildest Dreams,” also found their way into the top 10 on the tally. Many of these cuts rank among her most popular and highest-certified, having moved millions upon millions of copies.
Anticipation for the reworked versions of many of these singles is high, and Swift could capitalize on that excitement if she wanted to. Instead of dropping all those tunes at once when 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is made available as a full collection, she could share them one at a time. That plan would allow fans to rush to support each one individually, perhaps helping them perform better in their short windows of exclusivity.
Swift could potentially hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 twice with the same song but under slightly different titles. Tracks like “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space” are still performing well to this day, so if Swift pushed her massive fan base to stream and buy the retitled versions, they could also soar to the summit. She proved she could earn a No. 1 with a re-recording when “All Too Well” finally hit the top spot on the Hot 100 after being extended, renamed and re-released. So why shouldn’t the same be possible with tunes that were even more popular?
This plan could also work for those 1989 tunes that weren’t No. 1s in a past life. “Style” has already been surging in terms of sales and streams since Swift announced 1989 (Taylor’s Version), so perhaps that’s next in line to go to No. 1 on the Hot 100. Plenty of other cuts from the set were also fan favorites, and in their re-recorded forms, they might rise even higher than they did originally, as much has changed in the near-decade since 1989 took over the world.
If Swift does want to produce a number of major hits, one at a time, from 1989 (Taylor’s Version), she should start soon. The set is coming in less than two months, so she wants to give each one at least a week in which to rack up enough streams and sales to conquer the Hot 100, or at least debut high before she moves on to the next. This plan could help her increase her career totals of placements inside the highest reaches of the chart, but it also comes with some downsides.
Currently, Swift is busy trying to send her current single “Cruel Summer” to the highest rung on the Hot 100. The song is living inside the top 10, where it has remained for weeks. New tunes keep beating the cut to the summit, but there’s no telling what’s in store for the coming frames.
If it takes another few weeks to push that electro cut to the summit, she might not want to split attention and go for another leader from 1989 (Taylor’s Version). In essence, it’s possible that the slow rise of “Cruel Summer” may stop some promotional plans around 1989 (Taylor’s Version), though there’s no telling what Swift is planning at the moment.
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