Fans on a virtual hunt on Google, which will reveal Vault tracks from Taylor Swift‘s upcoming 1989 (Taylor’s Version), out October 27, were faced with some technical difficulties.
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Google began teasing the forthcoming hunt on Saturday (September 16) with a little blue vault that would pop up when fans searched “Taylor Swift.” On Tuesday (September 19), Google revealed that its search function will populate a series of 89 puzzles for fans can solve to reveal the names of the new songs.
“Love’s a game — and so is our latest easter egg in Search,” reads a description of the hunt from Google. “There are 89 puzzles to get through (a la ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’)—don’t say we didn’t warn ya! … You’ll be helping Swifties around the world get out of the woods (or unlock the vault) as everyone collectively solves 33 million puzzles. And that’s how it works, that’s how you get the vault track titles!”
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Swift previously revealed tracks From The Vault for her Taylor’s Version rereleases of Fearless, Red, and Speak Now with a video of scrambled letters, and partnered with Google for 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Also teasing the Google easter egg hunt, Swift posted a visual of the blue vault box and the caption “You can tell me when the search is over… if the high was worth the pain.”
The Google “vault” revealed a scrambled version of Swift’s upcoming album name, followed by more puzzles as fans answered a series of questions. Once launched, some fans complained of not seeing the blue vault box, while others claimed they were not able to submit answers after four or five puzzles.
The search engine tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that the “vault” was jammed. “Swifties, the vault is jammed,” read the post.” But don’t worry, there are no blank spaces inside. We’re in our fix-it era and will be out of the woods soon.”
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Swift recently revealed her re-recording of 1989 following her final show of the North American leg of her Eras Tour at the beginning of August.
“Surprise!! 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is on its way to you,” wrote Swift on social media along with the album cover. “The 1989 album changed my life in countless ways, and it fills me with such excitement to announce that my version of it will be out October 27th. To be perfectly honest, this is my most favorite re-record I’ve ever done because the five From The Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind. But not for long!”
Originally released in 2014, 1989 featured 13 tracks and 16 songs on a deluxe edition. Taylor’s Version will feature 21 songs, including five previously unreleased songs from The Vault. These extra songs have been included in Swift’s three prior re-recordings as an exclusive for fans streaming and purchasing the album.
Prior to Swift’s recent reveal of the release, things were leading up to Taylor’s Version of 1989 after a re-recorded version of “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” was featured in the season one finale of the Amazon Prime series The Summer I Turned Pretty. A new version of “Wildest Dreams” also appeared in the 2021 DreamWorks animated film Spirit.
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