By: Darien Campo Staff Writer
Radiohead announced the release of their first album as an unsigned band, “In Rainbows,” on September 30, 2007. Guitarist Johnny Greenwood made the announcement in a one sentence blog post with no prior build-up:
“Well, the new album is finished, and it’s coming out in 10 days […] We’ve called it ‘In Rainbows’.”
Four years later on Feb. 14, 2011, Radiohead announced they would be releasing their eighth studio album, “The King of Limbs,” in only five days – again, with no previous mention of an album. To everyone’s surprise, the album actually released a day early.
It’s been almost five years since their last release and Radiohead fans are beginning to feel the rumblings of a new LP on the horizon.
In 2005 Radiohead ended their contract with EMI in order to pursue a modern method of exchanging music between the band and their followers.
“I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one,” said Thom Yorke, lead singer.
Radiohead is the world’s most popular band to go without a label, which has led to some pretty unorthodox and “Surprise!” album releases.
If you have ever spent time talking with a Radiohead fan, you pick up just how rabid and obsessive they can be. If you let them, they will go on for hours about how two albums recorded a decade apart are actually written to be played together in a certain order.
Although we sound insane, we’re completely justified in our obsession. Radiohead feeds their fans with cryptic messages and mysterious photos knowing that we’ll pick them apart for clues. Never before have I seen a band that can so successfully manufacture fanatical hype for their music without dropping a dime on marketing.
These last few months alone have been an incredible testament to the perseverance of the Radiohead fandom. Anyone curious enough to follow the “r/radiohead” sub-Reddit can watch the detective work unfold daily. Fans have programs set to alert them to every slight change in code on WASTE and Dead Air Space, the two parts of Radiohead’s website. (Is the album being secretly uploaded where we can’t see it?)
Fans collectively lost their minds the other week when a Soundcloud glitch revealed that the band had privately uploaded a track that no one could listen to yet. (A new single, set to release any minute?)
Anything posted online by band members is picked apart and scrubbed through as fans struggle to find any clue to the release of Radiohead’s ninth studio album – which they’ve collectively dubbed “LP9.”
The best part of riding the “Radiohead Hype Train 2016 (CHOO CHOO)” is knowing that the music we get will be completely worth the wait. And although we have to fight for every detail and go for years at a time with no encouragement or clues, I know that not a single one of us would have it any other way.
