Taylor Swift’s ‘Better Than Revenge’ and the temptation to rewrite the past. But should artists always give in?

Taylor Swift has been here and gone, playing to over 200,000 fans inside Lincoln Financial Field during her three-night South Philly stand back in May, not to mention the thousands more who stood outside the stadium singing along.

But still the Summer of Swift carries on.

The Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, raised singer — who memorably uttered the words “I’m from Philly” while declaring her Philadelphia Eagles fandom at the Linc — currently has 10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, and she’s about to go all the way to eleven.

How is that even that possible, with only 10 albums to her name? Easy. It’s because “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” her rerecorded take on her 2010 album, came out July 7.

As with her previous rerecorded releases — new versions of 2008′s “Fearless” and 2012′s “Red” — the updated “Speak Now” gives Swift the chance to revisit the music she made in her youth and the opportunity to rewrite her past if she so chooses. And in one instance that has divided fans, it’s a temptation she’s been unable to resist.

But before we get to the complicated case of “Better Than Revenge,” let’s take a minute to appreciate just how much of a commercial force Swift is in 2023.

Recently, 23 of Spotify’s top 50 streaming songs were hers. That includes all 22 from the new “Speak Now,” plus, “Cruel Summer,” from 2019′s “Lover,” which is battling with Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampires” for song of the summer honors.

Philly rapper Lil Uzi Vert recently topped the Billboard album chart with the long awaited “The Pink Tape.” But Uzi’s reign will be brief. In four days, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” — or TV, in Swiftie speak — had combined sales and streams to make it not only the biggest selling album of the week, but the year.

That’s stunning in part because these are song people have heard before. They’re part of Swift’s ongoing project to rerecord her first six albums, which she embarked on after her former label, Big Machine Records, sold her masters to music mogul Scooter Braun.

In general, Swift hasn’t used the project to rework or rearrange her past work. The idea is to replicate it, to create a soundalike version with maybe some minor improvements for fans to opt into as a statement of solidarity with the artist who has been staggeringly effective at creating a close personal bond with her audience.