Taylor Swift fan says her Speak Now vinyl contains 'cursed' electronic music

By Mark SavageBBC Music Correspondent

A Taylor Swift fan in Staffordshire got a creepy surprise when she tried to play her brand new, orchid-coloured vinyl copy of Taylor Swift's Speak Now.

Instead of hearing Swift's re-recorded versions of Back To December and Sparks Fly, Rachel Hunter was confronted with a collection of dark and disturbing British electronica.

The opening song contained messages about "flakes of flesh" and "endless rows of sardines", while another sampled cult the 1960s horror series The Outer Limits.

"There are 70 billion people on Earth, where are they hiding? Where are they hiding?" intoned a husky male voice over a sinister, droning synth.

"At first, I thought maybe the vinyl had a secret message from Taylor," Hunter tells the BBC.

"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.

"I was alone and it was late and my vinyl was playing creepy messages."

Initially, Hunter had planned to film an "unboxing" video for her new purchase. But once she realised the manufacturing error, she shared her discovery on social media.

"Who is this?" she asked her followers, her voice shaking. "Please help me!"

By Wednesday, the video had 3.6 million views on TikTok and had been watched more than 1.5 million times on Twitter.

Internet sleuths started to piece together what was going on, identifying that both the songs Hunter had heard were taken from a UK compilation called Happy Land (A Compendium Of Electronic Music From The British Isles 1992-1996).

Side One is a trippy, 11-minute freakout called True Romance by the short-lived dance act Thunderhead. Side two is the deep house track Soul Vine (70 Billion People) by reformed punks Cabaret Voltaire.

"As far as record company mistakes go, this has to be one of the finest," noted DJ Damian Lazarus, re-posting Hunter's original video.

"Basically, if you bought the vinyl and was excited to listen to Speak Now, you will now be confronted by some of the most bizarre and brilliant music ever made... Good luck!!!!"

Happy Land was compiled by Ed Cartwright and Leon Oakey and issued earlier this year by the small British label Above Board Distribution.

It sold out its first print run but the label's founder, Dan Hill, says he's been taken aback by the sudden surge of attention.

"I haven't done anything, I've just been caught in this crossfire," he tells the BBC, "but it's a funny story and I'm glad that I haven't messed anything up."

He thinks the story has caught people's attention because the two styles of music are "poles apart".

"If they were more similar, it wouldn't be a story," he says. "But I think the star of the show, really, is Rachel: The way she's handled it and the way it blew up from there."

Since her first video went viral, Hunter has posted several follow-ups, including one where she changes the speed of her record player to prove the original audio hadn't been faked.

So far, she hasn't heard from other fans who've encountered the same error. "As far as I know it's the only one found!"

"It's going to be a collector's item," agrees Hill. "I've tried to buy two! I just want a copy of it."

'Surprise cover'

Mistakes like this are well-known in the record collecting community, and occur when a manufacturer accidentally uses the wrong metal master to press a new batch of vinyl.

These errors are generally caught by quality control before making it out of the plant. In some cases though, the error is not noticed until the records are in the hands of collectors.

In 2017, Columbia Records notified fans that a vinyl release of Beyonce's Lemonade had been mispressed with music from Canadian punk rock band ZEX.

Going further back, some copies of Start by The Jam were mispressed with the Village People's Can't Stop The Music; and one US pressing of the Rolling Stones' hits compilation Hot Rocks contained a version of Brown Sugar that was missing the saxophone solo.

These one-off discs often sell for hundreds of pounds on sites like Discogs and eBay.

It's not yet clear how the error on Speak Now (Taylor's Version) occurred.

Swift's album was released by Universal Music, which has no ties to Happy Lands' distributor, Above Board.

However, both companies used the French pressing plant MPO to manufacture their discs.

In a statement to the BBC, Universal said: "We are aware that there are an extremely limited number of incorrectly pressed vinyl copies in circulation and have addressed the issue".

The company said that fans who had been affected should contact their retailer for a replacement or refund.

For Hunter, the reaction to her discovery has all been positive.

"It's been really funny," she says. "Taylor's been playing surprise songs on tour and people are hoping for a cover of 70 Billion People now!

"Other people have told me to stop playing the record because they said it's cursed - which is funny because Speak Now has a song on it called Haunted."

For now, she's holding on to the disc, "because it's the rarest Taylor merch I have".

"But I have joked that I'd swap it for VIP tour tickets."

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o67CZ5qopV%2Bjsri%2Fjp6lrZ2iqa6qusyepa1lkafBtHmVb2hwcWBpgg%3D%3D