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Imogen Heap, who co-wrote and co-produced the 1989 track “Clean” with Taylor Swift, penned a note about her experience recording the 13th song on the 2014 album and re-recording it for the just-released version, 1989 (Taylor’s Version).

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“Today marks the release of ‘Taylor’s version’ of 1989 …the album originally released in 2014. The latest in line towards @taylorswift’s endeavour to re-record every album she’s ever done as part of an old record deal,” Heap wrote Friday (Oct. 27) on Instagram, where she shared photos from the studio.

“This is Taylor playing a bada– card to stay in control of her work in a commercial music industry that largely works against musicians,” she said.

Heap captioned a picture in her post: “Here’s me in my studio re-recording my bits on Clean last year, almost a decade on from the day Taylor swooped in to visit me at my home the @theround.house for 10 hours between 2 sold out shows at the 02 arena!”

She also captioned a snapshot of the two when they first worked together, writing, “downstairs in the @thehideaway.studio…Two ladies, in a room. We wrote and produced 90% of the track and still managed to eat lunch and dinner!”

“Now you can have fun playing spot the difference,” joked Heap, who thanked Swift on Instagram “for inviting me into your world!”

In a 2014 interview with the writer of this article, Swift recalled that “meeting Imogen Heap was an amazing experience for me because she was all I listened to in high school. Getting to not only meet her, but work with her and watch to see what she does in the studio, was really inspiring.”

So what did Swift first say upon first meeting one of her musical idols? “Hi, I’m so happy to meet you?” she answered with a laugh. “I try to keep it in check. I try to act as, like, normal as humanly possible.”

“The song ‘Clean’ is one that I wrote about sort of coming out of a relationship or trying to move on from some struggle that you had in your life, and feeling kind of tarnished by it,” Swift said during our chat, which took place before the release of 2014’s 1989. “And it kind of talks about how if you really allow yourself to feel pain, I think maybe it’s easier to get past it. For most people that I’ve known who’ve fought through struggle, a lot of them who have really just faced the pain head on have come out OK a lot faster than the ones who just pretended to be in denial of it.”

“Almost every line in that song is one that I’m proud of,” she told me.

Meanwhile, when the original 1989 was released that year, Heap admitted on her blog that prior to actually working together, she’d wrongly assumed Swift didn’t really write her own music.

“I have to be honest here and say that I ever so slightly had not done my homework on Taylor Swift but had done what I HATE others do of me, which is to pre-judge a person based on assumptions,” Heap wrote. “I had assumed Taylor didn’t write too much of her own music (as is the case with many young, extremely successful artists these days who sell a shed load of records), and was likely puppeteered by an aging gang of music executives.”

At the time Heap wanted to make it known that she’d been “reading the odd report or tweet here and there that the reason the lyrics to ‘Clean’ are so good is because I wrote the song with her but FOR SURE they are all hers she deserves all the credit!”

See Imogen Heap’s full note about re-recording “Clean” for 1989 (Taylor’s Version) below and on Instagram. Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) sold over 250,000 copies in the U.S. on its first day of release, according to initial reports to data tracking firm Luminate. After just one day, the album has the third-largest sales week of 2023.

Swifties are rejoicing once again, as Taylor Swift has released another re-recorded Taylor’s Version of one of her past albums this new music Friday. This week’s offerings also includes a highly anticipated project from Brent Faiyaz and other stars. October couldn’t be more decorated for fans of Swift, who is the lead finalist for the […]

Taylor Swift is addressing speculation around her sexuality and her “squad” of female friends. In the prologue for Swift’s re-recorded 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which dropped Friday (Oct. 27), the musician recalled becoming the “target of slut shaming” in the years leading up to the original album’s 2014 release. “The jokes about my amount of boyfriends,” […]

Taylor Swift has had the kind of year that most artists could only dream of. And now, according to a new analysis from Bloomberg, the 33-year-old singer has entered rarified air as a pop billionaire. A Bloomberg News analysis chronicling Swift’s rise to the rare status of a reported 10-figure pop singer is thanks to what the magazine said was “her prolific songwriting, negotiations around streaming and shrewd decision to re-record her first six albums” at a time when many other musicians have “lost clout in the industry.”
Swift’s bottom line has and will be boosted by the reported $4.3 billion the blockbuster Eras Tour has added to the U.S.’s gross domestic product so far this year; Forbes predicted in April that the first run of 52 U.S. dates could gross $620 million, of which Taylor could keep $500 million, with further U.S and international dates possibly pushing her take even higher. Plus, there is the No. 1 box office smash movie version of Eras that has packed theaters with singing, dancing, weeping Swifties around the world, not to mention Friday’s (Oct. 27) release of her latest re-record, 1989 (Taylor’s Version).

“Taken together, Swift Inc. is essentially a multinational conglomerate with the world’s most devoted customer base, its most charismatic CEO and significant economic power,” Bloomberg said of the power of Swifties and Taylor’s close relationship, and devotion, to fan service. University of Chicago labor economist Carolyn Sloane told Bloomberg that in addition to being a generational talent, “Swift is a great economist… Taylor has great ideas, is able to scale her ideas and seems to be pretty risk-seeking.”

Bloomberg said its “conservative” analysis of Swift’s net worth is based only on assets and earnings that could be confirmed or tied to publicly disclosed figures, taking into account the estimated value of her music catalog and five homes, earnings from streaming deals, music sales, concert tickets and merchandise. The tally also reportedly took into account the impacts of income tax, tour production and travel costs and commissions to agents and managers.

In a break-down, Bloomberg said the majority of Swift’s reported value ($400m) is from her music catalog, followed by ticket sales and merch ($370m), streaming ($120m), real estate ($110m) and royalties from music sales ($80m). On top of that, in the wake of a number of major veteran acts such as Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan selling their catalogs for mid-nine-figure sums, Bloomberg estimated that a potential Swift catalog sale of all of her music could range from a low of $400 million to $1 billion, pushing her well above recent catalog sales by the likes of contemporaries Justin Bieber ($200m), Katy Perry ($225m) and Justin Timberlake ($100m).

At press time a spokesperson for Swift had not returned Billboard’s request for comment on the Bloomberg report.

“Every endorsement, partnership and business move she makes is part of a broader, meticulously-constructed plan,” Stacy Jones, founder of the Hollywood Branded marketing agency told Bloomberg. “It’s not just impressive, it’s masterful.”