Rachael Hunter couldn’t wait to play her new vinyl recording of Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now.”
After waiting weeks for it to arrive, Ms. Hunter placed the orchid-colored vinyl on her record player with Ms. Swift’s face at its center, raised the needle and let it play. But instead of Ms. Swift’s catchy chorus, acoustic guitar and banjo strums, another woman’s voice came to the fore.
“I have stopped seeing people, pieces of flesh and dancing creatures,” said an echoing voice, without music in the background.
Maybe there was something wrong with the pace, Ms. Hunter thought, or maybe it was one of Ms. Swift’s infamous Easter eggs. He flipped the record over to the other side, but it got even weirder.
“The 70 billion people of the earth, where are they hiding?” The horrified voice of a man spoke over and over again.
“It was a little scary. I was alone,” Ms. Hunter recalled. “I thought, Is this a horror movie? Because it didn’t feel like real life, especially when you’re expecting Taylor Swift.
The record was not haunted. It was just British electronica music.
Universal Music Group, which represents Taylor Swift, and Above Board Distribution, a smaller British label, use the same printing plant in France. But instead of pressing Ms. Swift’s “Speak Now” album, Plant mistakenly pressed “Happy Land,” a compilation of 1990s British electronica, on purple vinyl and put it in a “Speak Now” jacket.
The first song Ms. Hunter heard was “true love,” which contains over 11 minutes of electronica by Thunderhead, and the second was ”soul wine,” a deep-house track from Cabaret Voltaire, one of the most influential groups in the genre.
That revelation came true only after Ms. Hunter posted about my experience on tiktok: “Isn’t Taylor Swift on anyone else’s ‘Speak Now’ vinyl?” He asked. The video has been viewed over four million times.
Now she’s turning down offers of $250 for the record. His video started a long discussion disconnection, an online music database, among collectors hoping to find another copy. cabaret fans of voltaire The band’s vinyl sleeves re-imagined With the names of Ms. Swift’s albums; even one Ms. Swift’s song “All Too Well” was mixed with Cabaret Voltaire’s “Nag Nag Nag”.
In a statement, Universal said that it “is aware that there are an extremely limited number of misprinted vinyl copies in circulation and has resolved the issue,” adding that if customers receive the misprinted vinyl, they should contact their retailer.
Ms Hunter, who bought the album through Ms Swift’s official store in the UK, had requested a new copy but had not received it as of Friday.
Dan Hill, managing director of Above Board, said that the label had printed a few hundred records of “Happy Land”, and he assumed that the stamper had been accidentally left on the machine and was used for the “Speak Now” disc. .
He said, “What happened in the making of this record is kind of like making a cake – they mixed the ingredients.” beyonce And the Beatles, “But probably not with this profile.”
Mr Hill believes there may be at least one more pressing person like Ms Hunter in the world. He looks as tough as the next record collector.
“It’s the golden ticket to complete Willy-Wonka-style. If anyone has one, it could be worth thousands,” he said. “But no one knows how far along they are.”
Joe Muggs, a British music writer Who reviewed the reissue of “Happy Land” Earlier this spring to online magazine The Quietus, it was said that the tracks came from a variety of genres, including heavy dub reggae, industrial and electronica, coming together to create a “very heady kind of sound”. Which was a symbol of the 1990s.
“That’s what makes the music on this album really exciting,” he said, “it still has the ability to startle when someone hears it out of nowhere.”
The song Cabaret Voltaire is one of the darker tracks, he said, but several songs had “pop harmonies” and were “pretty funky”; There’s a lot of music.”
“The fact that TikTok will bring up these random things leaves the window open for magic in terms of changing people’s tastes or starting small fires,” Mr Muggs said.
Stephen Malinder, a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire, is hoping for exactly that. Cabaret Voltaire has always attracted new audiences, he said, but Ms. Swift’s sudden onset of audiences “is a different magnitude.”
“It has captured everyone’s imagination because it is a cultural clash of massive proportions,” Mr. Malinder said. He further added, “If we can convert some and get them into electronica stuff, clubby stuff, that’s fine with me.”
