Swifties may have noticed there is now a Taylor Swift Bandcamp page, but it’s not at all what you’d expect. Rather than being home to the pop star’s discography, the website contains music from Madison James, a member of the New Jersey rock bands Ogbert the Nerd and No Good with Secrets.
There are currently three tracks on the page, titled “Taylor Swift 1,” “Taylor Swift 2,” and “Taylor Swift 3,” which were uploaded after James jokingly tweeted last week about “starting a screamo band” upon securing taylorswift.bandcamp.com. Stream the songs below.
In a new interview with Us Weekly, James (who uses they/them pronouns) explained they didn’t put much thought into starting the Bandcamp page under Swift’s name.
“There’s no bigger meaning to it besides a one-off joke I made and the way it spiraled into a wider discussion and thing people are excited over has been as funny as it’s been interesting,” James said. “I don’t mean any malice or have any deep-rooted beliefs in the deeper meaning of any of this. I’m just having a little fun for the sake of making my friends laugh and maybe learning how to write better riffs.”
It’s worth noting that this isn’t James’ first time camping on a famous musician’s Bandcamp url. They also own mychemicalromance.bandcamp.com, dualipa.bandcamp.com, daftpunk.bandcamp.com, and nikkiminaj.bandcamp.com, with each page allowing them to explore different genres.
James is also gearing up to release new music as a part of No Good with Secrets. The band’s second album, Another Side, has been set for release on May 10th.
Meanwhile, the international pop star Taylor Swift will debut songs from her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, on the UK/Europe leg of “The Eras Tour” (get tickets here) when it kicks off in early May with Paramore as support. In October, she’ll return to North America with opener Gracie Abrams, and you can get tickets for those dates here.