Taylor Swift said, “Speak Now” — but now some fans are concerned she’s “Haunted.”
Some Swifties who received the new “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” album on vinyl experienced a “creepy” issue when they went to listen.
“Send help I got speak now (not Taylors 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 small batch of the vinyls were “incorrectly pressed” and gave fans quite the scare when it started to play British electronica music rather than the hits from the 33-year-old singer-songwriter.
Messages of “flakes of flesh” and “endless rows of sardines” started to play in a dark twist.
“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, selling 575,000 equivalent album units.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
