Whether you like it or not, the new Taylor Swift album is out there. Whether you’ve seen it via a Zippyshare.com link containing a file called “albumsgonnaleakleakleakleakleak.rar†(Seriously, that’s what the leaker called it!) or perhaps secondhand through individual Dropboxes — an array of inside-joke-named folders purposefully conspicuous in their track-naming. But to look a little further, it’s the track names (and number of tracks) that seem to point toward where this leak might’ve come from.
If you downloaded the original leak, you’ll see that song titles are missing and in their place there are a slew of numbered “pistes.†Ha, yes, pretty funny, but piste is French for “track,†so these songs definitely came France* (or are the product of a very paranoid leaker). Furthermore, when you put the tracks into iTunes, all of the French album information appears: “Album inconnu,†mine reads, or, “Unknown album.†Another thing to note, instead of the 13 main album tracks listed by Taylor on her Instagram, we’ve got a whopping 19 “pistes†here. You’ll recall that Taylor’s album is getting an exclusive release (just like her last one did) in Target stores — featuring three bonus tracks (“Wonderland,†“You R in Love,†“New Romance,â€) and three “songwriting voice memos that offer a unique insight into Taylor’s songwriting process and document the early creation of these songs.â€
Thrilled as you may be with the thorough leak, no doubt Taylor’s label is already scouring their sources for the possible leaker — and using these very same clues to find them. It’s a regular whodunnit! We’re no Sherlock, but as far as we’re concerned, the culprit is French and associated with Target. The rest you’ll have to take from there, Big Machine. Best of luck.
* Or, it has been brought to my attention, Canada. Where there are also Targets. Blame all the French-speaking places, I guess! You’re all under the microscope now.