Taylor Swift said, “Speak Now” — but now some fans are concerned she’s “Haunted.”
Some Swifties who bought the new “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” album on vinyl experienced a “creepy” issue when they dropped the turntable needle.
“Send help I got Speak Now (not Taylor’s Version) this is so funny,” a fan captioned a video on TikTok, which has garnered 4.1 million views and 464,400 likes.
Turns out, a small batch of the vinyl LPs were “incorrectly pressed.” Fans who’d purchased the duds got quite the scare when they heard British electronica rather than the hits of the 33-year-old singer-songwriter.
And, in a darker twist, lyrics about “flakes of flesh” and “endless rows of sardines” accompanied the music.
“At first, I thought maybe the vinyl had a secret message from Taylor. But when I flipped to the B-side, it started saying ‘There’s 70 billion people on earth, where are they hiding?’ I started to get a little scared,” TikToker Rachel Hunter — @mischief_marauder on TikTok — told the BBC. “I was alone and it was late and my vinyl was playing creepy messages.”
The record was playing Cabaret Voltaire’s “Soul Vine (70 Billion People)” instead of “Mine (Taylor’s Version).”
“This would be wild in the ’70s before the internet. You would just think this is what the album was,” one person pointed out in the TikTok comments.
“This would creep me out,” another admitted.
Universal Music Group, the parent company of Swift’s label, Republic Records, told Billboard in a statement, “We are aware that there are an extremely limited number of incorrectly pressed vinyl copies in circulation and have addressed the issue. If you have purchased one of the affected goods, please contact customer service at your respective retailer for a replacement or refund.”
Distribution company Above Board Distribution also commented on the mix-up on Instagram, reposting Hunter’s video to their page.
“Due to a delicate pressing blunder, some Taylor Swift fans received a misprinted copy of ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),’ which we have learned features audio of our in house compilation ‘Happy Land (A Compendium of Music from the British Isles 1992-1996),’” the company wrote in the caption.
“Never in our wildest dreams could we imagine this situation. While we know all too well this error was beyond our control, we sincerely hope anyone who received what is Not Taylor’s Version of the vinyl is enchanted by the blissful electronica,” they continued. “Keep your eyes peeled for this special edition we’re sure it’s going to be a Discogs rare pressing classic in years to come.”
“Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” was released on July 7 and had the biggest one-week sale for albums so far this year, with 575,000 individual sales across different formats.
