We’ve talked about Cover versions, we’ve delved into the world of remixes, we’ve talked about greatest hits compilations and we’ve talked extensively about the re-release of music on new mediums like Vinyl and Cassette here on Picky Bastards. One thing we’ve yet to dive into are re-recordings, more than just a one off acoustic live performance to promote a new single, or a remix EP to flog to your fans, occasionally artists go all in reworking and reimagining their own music, like cover versions of their own records. Recent years have seen hugely successful examples, some of which you’ll definitely see in the list below, but whether it’s to claw back more rights to your masters, or to give fans an alternative take on your music re-recordings can take many different forms. Here are some of my favourites:
Taylor Swift – Red (Taylor’s Version)
I’m kicking off with the most obvious and what you can gather was the starting point for this entire list. Taylor Swift has proven that a fan base can truly get behind an artist wanting to reclaim their music and see even bigger success than the original versions did. We are just days away from her 3rd studio album, Speak Now, seeing its own Taylor’s Version released, but so far it’s Red that has become one of the most successful recording projects in history. For me some of the Pop focused tracks like ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ lose some of their immediacy, but the country leaning moments like ‘Red’ and ‘I Almost Do’ sound better than ever in this new version.
Car Seat Headrest – Twin Fantasy
Twin Fantasy is an entire re-recording of the similarly titled album from 7 years prior, recorded to ‘achieve the expansiveness’ that Will Toledo had always wanted from the album. The album artwork was even traced over the original drawing to mirror the musical re-imagining that the album itself received.
St Vincent – MassEducation
Renaming the record from MASSEDUCTION to MassEducation just to confuse me as I type this record out, the stripped back reimagining of the Grammy winning album couldn’t feel more different if it tried. The focus on Piano gives everything this thrilling immediacy that almost makes it more engaging than the original record.
Tangerine Dream – Phaedra 2005
Tangerine Dream re-recorded three of their early albums in the mid 00s, and on this list it’s one of the biggest gaps between the original release and the new version. I’m not going to try and convince anyone that I know very much about Tangerine Dream, but given how prolific they’ve been with re-recordings they had to be here.
JoJo – The High Road (2008)
Thanks to being signed to Blackstreet records as a child decades ago, JoJo had no rights to own her music, or ensure it was available to hear legally. None of her music was available on streaming services, so this was the biggest reason to revisit the music. She re-recorded her first two albums and all of her additional singles in 2018 not only for her own ownership, but so that the songwriters of the original records could start to earn money when the music finally arrived on streaming. JoJo sounds better than ever on both albums too, one of pop’s most underrated vocalists.
Kate Bush – Director’s Cut
Taking tracks from her albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes and mashing them together into a brand new album, Director’s Cut is unique among the re-recordings I’ve mentioned here. Kate’s voice brings a new warmth to these songs, while massive changes to the structure of songs and completely rewritten lyrics elsewhere. It makes for pretty much a completely new album.
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells 2003
Re-Recording and reimagining one of the most popular and iconic stand alone ‘albums’ in history maybe was a strange decision, but much like Kate Bush, this seemed to allow Mike Oldfield the space to include parts of these songs that he couldn’t do originally, or expand on his original ideas. At this point we’ve had about 20 versions of Tubular Bells though, with this being the most obvious re-recording of that album.
Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar On Me 2012
Years before Taylor took on the industry, Def Leppard re-recorded a series of their biggest hits to clamour back some of the royalties they no longer received now that their music was available digitally. These versions don’t seem to have lasted past this initial moment, but it’s one of the more targeted uses of a re-recording to earn back that lost income.
Bjork – Vulnicura Strings
Maybe more of a re-imagining than a re-recording, for me there’s enough of a difference on Vulnicura Strings to make it fit this list. Stripping away the electronic sounds on tracks like ‘NotGet’ brings everything tighter around Bjork’s vocal and emotional lyrics. Strings were already such a big part of the success of Vulnicura but here they truly shine on ‘Black Lake’ and ‘Stonemilker’.
Kylie Minogue – The Abbey Road Sessions
The most obvious outlier on here, but bringing the ‘orchestral version’ style of greatest hits album into this Top Ten list. Kylie’s songs feel transformed on The Abbey Road Sessions and while the biggest hits like ‘Better The Devil You Know’ and ‘On a Night Like This’ are fun, it’s the more subtle moments like ‘Finer Feelings’ that truly shine on this album. Kylie sounds better than ever on this record.
Words by Sam Atkins
Picky Bastards 
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