Taylor Swift’s ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ Breaks a Country Streaming Record

Taylor Swift's Speak Now (Taylor's Version) debuted with not one but two major milestones in the streaming world when it arrived on Friday (July 7.)

According to a social media post from Spotify, the re-released version of Swift's 2010 country album became the most-streamed country album in the streaming platform's history when it landed on Friday. That day, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) also broke a record for most single-day streams on Spotify so far in 2023.

"We've had the time of our lives breaking records with you," the platform wrote on social media, along with an emoji of a purple heart to signify the colors of Swift's Speak Now era.

Swift originally created Speak Now while still firmly in her country period, still two albums out from pivoting completely to pop with 1989 four years later. She wrote the songs by herself while on the road promoting 2008's Fearless, and as you might expect from a project forged by solo writes, Speak Now produced some of Swift's most introspective and personal songs to date. Already a country superstar who'd made her name on fresh-faced charm and catchy, cleverly-constructed songwriting, Speak Now found the singer on a bridge between adolescence and adulthood, already moving from her signature country pop to a more omnivorous, genre-spanning sound.

Speak Now is the third album that Swift has re-released as a Taylor's Version project. As she has done with all the re-recorded albums thus far, she included several extra From the Vault tracks on the new release. For Speak Now, those are "Electric Tough" (a duet with Fall Out Boy," "When Emma Falls in Love," "Castles Crumbling" (a duet with Hayley Williams), "Foolish One" and "Timeless."

Though Swift has painstaking stayed faithful to her songs' original recordings in her Taylor's Version re-releases, Speak Now does include a few subtle changes. Most notably, she altered one lyric in the track "Better Than Revenge."

Written about an unfaithful ex and the woman he left her for, "Better Than Revenge" originally featured the lyric "She's not a saint and she's not what you think / She's an actress, whoa / She's better known for the things that she does / On the mattress, whoa." The new lyric moves away from judging the other woman for her sexual exploits, with Swift instead singing, "He was a moth to the flame / She was holding the matches / whoa."

Swift formally announced the Taylor's Version of Speak Now during a Nashville stop on her current Eras Tour. That trek will continue domestically through Aug. 9, wrapping in Los Angeles. The singer recently announced plans to take the Eras Tour abroad to Europe, Asia and Australia next year, with dates on the calendar through Aug. 17, 2024.