Panic rippled through offices, campuses, and coffee shops across the globe Monday morning after Spotify abruptly crashed following the surprise release of Taylor Swift’s 13th studio album, “Midnights (Again) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault of the Vault)”.
The 34-track album, announced via an uncaptioned Instagram Story at exactly 11:11 a.m. EST, sent Swifties into a collective frenzy so intense that Spotify’s servers reportedly caught fire, both digitally and, somehow, physically.
“Our entire infrastructure buckled under the weight of emotionally unstable millennials refreshing the app at once,” said Spotify engineer Lukas Jansson, speaking through tears. “Some of them were already crying before the first track started. That kind of psychic energy is hard to code for.”
According to data scientists, the crash began approximately 12 seconds after the album went live, when 87% of all active users attempted to stream track 13, “I Bet You Thought This One Wasn’t About You (But It Totally Is)”, simultaneously. The track, rumored to reference at least three of Swift’s former boyfriends and one Supreme Court Justice, remains unplayable to this hour.
Within minutes, streaming chaos spilled into the physical world.
“I was in a meeting when it dropped,” said Brooklyn-based marketing coordinator Rachel Alvarez, 27. “My AirPods screamed and burst into flames. I didn’t even press play.”
Nationwide, productivity plummeted as thousands of fans stopped what they were doing to openly weep, tweet all-caps reactions, and theorize about cryptic lyrics that may or may not reference the Treaty of Versailles.
Spotify released a statement mid-crisis urging users to “please take a walk or read a book,” which was widely mocked and ignored. As of press time, engineers were reportedly trying to restore service by uploading a single WAV file of the entire album to Napster.
Meanwhile, Swift has yet to comment on the disruption but posted a photo of a glowing candle on a piano with the caption: “✨ see you in the chaos ✨,” which was liked 12 million times and caused a brief blackout in the northeastern U.S.
Rumors are already swirling that Swift may drop a second surprise album next week. Experts say it may take Spotify’s servers, and the global economy, months to recover.