Remake, remodel: what makes musicians rerecord old albums?

The Shins and Car Seat Headrest are the latest bands to indulge in rerecording their earlier work. Is it money for old rope, or a chance at artistic liberation?

The next month brings not one but two instances of bands rerecording entire albums. This Friday, the Shins release The Worm’s Heart, a “flipped” version of last year’s Heartworms, in which the running order is reversed and each song performed in a different style. On 16 February, Car Seat Headrest follow suit with a new version of 2011’s Twin Fantasy, an emo lo-fi album in which the then 19-year-old Will Toledo dissected his toxic love life.

The latter case is easy to understand. What ended up being a touchstone album for CSH’s fans was originally recorded by Toledo alone on a laptop, and it sounds like it. Its power comes from its intimacy, the sense of performer speaking directly to listener, almost unmediated. But since then Car Seat Headrest have become a proper band, and Toledo apparently had it written into his deal with Matador that he could revisit the album. “It was never a finished work,” he has said, “and it wasn’t until last year that I figured out how to finish it.” The comparison between the old and new album is like that between a demo and a finished record: everything is punchier, bigger, brought into focus. Things are different in places (Nervous Young Inhumans has a new set of lyrics), but it’s not a reimagining so much as a clarifying.

Related: How Squeeze seized the keys to their back catalogue