Blog Post: Radiohead Conspiracy Theories
The other day I found myself scouring the internet for reviews of Radiohead’s new album The King Of Limbs. It has often been said that Radiohead fans tend to have a spot of the obsessive about them, and with the latest release, this obsession seems to be taking hold. I’ve always put myself in the category of slightly-too-keen, but some of this goes a little far even for me:
- Radiohead are planning to release three separate albums with the physical copy of The King of Limbs as it contains two vinyls and a C.D.. This is probably the least crazy idea suggested, as with 2007s release In Rainbows, there was an entire other album on disc two. However, perhaps a little greedy folks?
- There MUST be a second album because on the website, the order tracking says TKOL1, so everyone’s waiting for TKOL2. This is a little odd and secretive, but definitely not a reason to get up and dance like Thom just yet (see point four).
- There is a secret second album hidden on everyone’s hard drive already, waiting to reveal itself on a separate date, maybe Easter, for a super special Easter present... O.K., now we’re heading into the slightly more desperate. If this was true, I can imagine a computer-skilled-Radiohead-obsessive would have discovered said hidden album by now. Surely that’s enough conspiracy theories for now? Apparently not.
- There’s hardly any guitar on the album, so they’ll obviously release a guitar-heavy album to compliment it... So according to this fan, Radiohead must adhere to the same sound of previous albums to satisfy him?
- The penultimate lyrics of the album are ‘If you think this is over, then you’re wrong’. This is something Radiohead would arguably do, a little snippet of things to come, but is it too obvious?
- Thom Yorke is dancing happily in the video for Lotus Flower which must highlight that Radiohead are really happy because they’ve been secretive and no-one’s figured out their plan to release another album... Maybe he’s just a happy kinda guy that likes to make slightly odd videos?
- One commenter on NME’s website believes he resized and saved a JPEG of the artwork, and this magically caused it to change the entire colour scheme, which he believes to be the artwork of this mysterious second album. Not that I tried this myself or anything, but I think it only worked for him...
Dare I suggest that there are just a lot of disappointed Radiohead fans out there? Eight tracks and nearly four years just doesn’t add up in the Radiohead to amount-of-tracks-we-deserve-as-loyal-fans fairness ratio.
Or maybe we’ve all been spoilt in the past by the mysteries of the ‘pay-what-you-like’ for In Rainbows, and just want something more.
Frankly, I think The King of Limbs is a wonderful album which gets better as it goes along. Having heard a live recording of Give Up The Ghost several months ago, I couldn’t wait to see if they’d pop it on the album. I think it’s one of the most haunting and beautiful tracks they’ve ever produced. The album touches at some of the obscurity and experimental nature of previous efforts, but arguably doesn’t cover any new ground.
Who knows if any of the above conspiracy theories will prove to be true?
It would be wonderful if they were all correct, but as always with Radiohead, they will keep quiet until the last second, let the conspiracists talk and mutter amongst themselves, and we’ll just have to wait and see.
It’s a pretty genius publicity stunt.
