Fans split over hefty price tag to hear all of Taylor Swift’s new music

Fans split over hefty price tag to hear all of Taylor Swift’s new music
Bryan West
USA TODAY NETWORK

“All’s fair in love and poetry,” Taylor Swift has declared in the lead up to her new album “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Including capitalism, it seems.

The billionaire songwriter will release four different versions of the album with each featuring a different bonus track.

The cost of each version on vinyl is $34.99. Standard delivery brings the total to $47.99. For fans lucky enough to nab all four versions (only the version with bonus track “The Manuscript” is still available on her website), the total at checkout will be just shy of $200. Besides vinyl, there are digital downloads for $11.99, CDs for $12.99 or cassettes for $19.99. It may feel like a high price tag, but super fans will say you can’t quantify the happiness Swift’s artistry provides.

I’ve purchased all four,” says Sarah Chapelle, a fashion influencer and author of “Taylor Swift Style: Fashion Through the Eras.” “I consider myself a CD collector and always have. I love seeing the different lenses Taylor wants to frame her art with, and I enjoy collecting variants.”

The four bonus tracks are “The Manuscript,” “The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Dog.” Each version comes in a different color with a different cover. The phrases on the backs indicate fans are in store for a heartbreak album: “I love you, it’s ruining my life,” “You don’t get to tell me about sad,” “Am I allowed to cry?” and “Old habits die screaming.”
“I consider fandom a ‘choose your own adventure’ opportunity,” Chapelle says. “It’s up to the individual to decide which aspects they want to engage in that emotionally spark joy and financially align with their circumstances.”

The variants aren’t a new concept in Swift economics. She had six vinyls of “Midnights” (all had the same 13 tracks), five of “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” (one of these albums had the bonus track, “Sweeter Than Fiction”) and 10 of “Folklore” (all had the same 17 tracks).

See an extensive guide to her entire vinyl discography here.

Fans have had mixed reactions to the multiple versions on social media, and it’s not the first time they’ve debated the price of being a Taylor Swift fan. In December, Swift released a rental version of the Eras Tour movie, asking Swifties to pay $19.89 to watch the movie for 48 hours. Next week, the movie will be released on Disney+ with her song “Cardigan” added and four new acoustic songs (including “Maroon”)