MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Retail conglomerate Target announced today that they would be participating in Record Store Day by offering 35 separate versions of Taylor Swift’s new album “The Tortured Poets Department,” sources unloading crates and crates of records confirmed.
“We’ve partnered with Taylor for years to carry a myriad of exclusive variants of her albums and re-releases, but on this Record Store Day we wanted it to be special. We’re happy to let our guests know that we’ve thrown our existing vinyl inventory into a landfill to make room for 35 separate versions of ‘Tortured Poets Department,’” said VP of Logistics Mike Wallace. “Guests can get their hands on these records that will also come with exclusive Target content like Taylor reading random words from the dictionary, or a 20-minute butt dial from Travis Kelce passionately talking about zoo animals. Not only will fans be happy, but so will our shareholders. We’re going to be printing money today.”
While the corporate offices were looking forward to the extra revenue, store employees were trying to control the chaos on the ground.
“This has already been the worst day of my life and it’s not even lunchtime yet. It took all night to painstakingly set up displays just for everything to sell out 15 minutes after we opened the doors. Now we have Swifties tearing the store apart because they think there’s some secret 36th version hiding somewhere,” said Kevin Kerns. “I feel bad using the actual Record Store Day exclusives we got to barricade the doors, but we didn’t have a choice. I guess it’s somewhat comforting to know physical media is still popular, but not every one of her albums needs a one off track where she sneezes mid-song.”
Many independent record store owners unsuccessfully tried to procure even a handful of Swift’s albums.
“How the hell are we supposed to compete with the retail chains when they’re shilling variants of ‘TPD’ where she’s singing backward? I reached out to her label for just a few copies of the vanilla version and they said their minimum order was 25,000 units,” said store owner Cindy McClane. “As much as I want Record Store Day to focus on celebrating rare and revived albums, it would be nice to make a year’s rent in a day. Hopefully we’ll come close with all these copies of At the Drive-In’s ‘In/Casino/Out’.
Target later addressed the inventory issues, saying there were still plenty of copies of the Taylor Swift/Refused split 7” in stores.