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Taylor Swift, in full pose on stage

Photo: MICHAEL TRAN / AFP

A lot helps a lot. This is also true if you put an almost gigantic number of puzzles in the way of fans of Taylor Swift. That's exactly what the American pop singer did together with Google. To promote the upcoming release of their album »1989 (Taylor's Version)«, the pop star and the largest Internet company have teamed up. The result was a guessing game for millions.

Swift likes to give her fans riddles on a regular basis, hiding hidden clues in social media postings. For example, when her Instagram account Taylornation wrote in August: "53 shows, 20 cities, 10 Eras, 5 months, and 1 thing's for sure... «. What was considered safe is unimportant, what is important are the numbers. Because they add up to 89. A little later, Swift announced the release of the newly recorded version of her album »1989«, »Taylor's Version«.

Swift releases some songs on the reissues of her albums that didn't originally make it onto the record. These songs, quasi B-sides, are referred to as "From the Vault". For hardcore fans, the so-called Swifties, even puzzles that promise to reveal only the name of the unreleased songs trigger an immediate reflex to know.

This time, however, the hurdle was higher than usual. Fans had to solve a total of 33 million puzzles to find out which unreleased numbers Swift would put on the new album, Google explains in its blog The Keyword. To get to the puzzles, all you have to do is enter "Taylor Swift" into Google's search mask. On the results page, the image of a vault appears next to the usual Google hits. By clicking on it, each user could then solve a maximum of 89 letter puzzles – this number is also no coincidence.

It is unclear how many people took part in this letter scavenger hunt. But it was enough to make Google's servers stutter. Shortly after the puzzles went online, the Internet company spoke up on X, which used to be called Twitter: "Swifties, the safe is clogged! "But the problem will be solved soon." Swiftie's BROKE GOOGLE 😜😜😜 « cheered one user in the comments.

Others, meanwhile, organized themselves on Reddit to solve the puzzles together. It was worth it for the fans. It took the community less than a day to complete the 33 million tasks and open the virtual vault. A success for the fans, but also for the musician. And the Swifties now know what the songs in question are called. PR couldn't be easier.

The fact that Taylor Swift is re-recording her old albums at all has to do with a dispute over publishing rights. Scooter Braun, manager of her former label Big Machine, has sold the rights to the Swift songs released between 2008 and 2018 to an investment fund. The artist then decided to re-record six of her successful albums – in the hope that from now on her fans would only stream her versions out of solidarity.

Mak