Whether your late-weekend routine entails reading music blogs, casually browsing the whole of the internet, or compulsively typing “Radiohead next album release date” into your search engine of choice, you were in for some strange news yesterday: Radiohead … has gone missing! Well, sort of. The headlines coalesced around the choicest Radiohead puns (“Radiohead have disappeared completely”; “Radiohead have erased themselves”; “Radiohead fade out”; “Not OK, computer!”). The articles themselves all delivered the same basic details: Radiohead’s website is now just a blindingly white page, Radiohead’s Twitter page is suddenly tweetless, Radiohead’s Facebook page and Google+ page have gone similarly blank, and frontman Thom Yorke cannot be found for comment. (Band members Jonny Greenwood and Phil Selway seem to still be with us, though. Phew—for a minute there …)
Upping the intrigue was the weekend’s other weird Radiohead news: On Saturday morning, some of the band’s U.K. fans received leaflets in the mail (or “in the post,” as it were) containing the following cryptic message: “Sing the song of sixpence that goes/ BURN THE WITCH/ We know where you live.” And as the most fervent of Radiohead-heads will tell you, “Burn the Witch” is the rumored title of one of Radiohead’s many long-gestating, as-yet-unreleased tracks.
So, what does it all mean? Let’s break it down: There’s a tour starting in less than three weeks. There’s probably an album coming soonish. There might be a single coming even sooner. But beyond that, we’ll just have to wait and see. Despite what they might claim, Radiohead loves surprises.
