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Home » Culture » Radiohead are back from the internet dead - and Instagram is where the action is
 

Radiohead are back from the internet dead - and Instagram is where the action is

Sahil Bhalla | Updated on: 10 February 2017, 1:49 IST
TWEET THIS
First, they disappeared for 24 hours. Then, naturally, they announced a new album. Predictable much, Radiohead
Which social network do you go to if you're a cult band with a new album to announce? The answer's a surprise

How long does it take to erase yourself from the internet? Till two days ago, we wouldn't have been able to offer an estimate, but now - thanks to Radiohead - we can.

24 hours is all it took for the iconic band to wipe itself metaphorically off the face of the internet, taking social media by shock.

And then, barely a full day later, they did it again - this time dropping a 15-second stop-motion animation of a chirping bird onto the internet, in what is being called a prelude to their upcoming ninth studio album.

What's truly weird, though? Where chirping bird debuted. Not YouTube. Or SoundCloud. Or even Facebook. Or Twitter.

The answer to the question is one of social media's cult favourites, Instagram.

A video posted by Radiohead (@radiohead) on

But first, let's backtrack a bit. Over the weekend, the internet saw a ticking bomb explode. Thom Yorke and his fellow Radiohead band members went cold turkey. From full to empty. From filled with colour to just white. One by one they hit the delete button. From Tweets to Facebook posts to profile pictures, everything went away, including their website.

Poof. Radiohead was no more.

Back in January, Radiohead registered two new companies, Dawn Chorus LLP and Dawnchoruss LTD, hinting that a new album was on its way. They've done this before, with their last two albums - Xurbia Xendless Ltd. And before releasing In Rainbows in 2007, and Ticker Tape Ltd for 2011's The King of Limbs.

With the band touring later this month, it's clear the album drop is imminent. Some fans even received cards in the mail that had the band's logo and these words, "Sing the song of sixpence that goes 'Burn the witch'."

In fact, Radiohead have now debuted "Burn the Witch" on none other than YouTube.

Subsequently, the song became available on Spotify, Tidal, and iTunes. If it wasn't Radiohead, then none of this would have mattered. Given the fact that Thom Yorke compared YouTube and its parent company Google to Nazi Germany, means this is important. He also called Spotify, "the last desperate fart of a dying corpse".

Just prior to the release of the song, Radiohead had debuted one more video on Instagram and

its anyones guess as to what direction the band is headed in:

A video posted by Radiohead (@radiohead) on

It being Radiohead, this isn't unusual. When they dropped their previous album, King of Limbs (does anyone 'release' an album anymore?), Yorke himself was among those handing out Radiohead-themed newspapers at record stores. Before that, In Rainbows was distributed online in the initial days. Fans were invited to pay what they wanted for the songs and the album. And even Yorke's most recent project, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, was distributed via download service BitTorrent. As Silvia Killingsworth over at The Awl

says, "Deleting yourself from the Internet is the oldest look-at-me trick in the book"

Meanwhile Josh Horwitz from Quartz proved that you can forget social media but social media will never forget you.

He discovered that the band had forgotten it had a Myspace account: "Radiohead's internet disappearing act is incomplete, however. The band's Myspace page still has photos and events, as well as over 600,000 "connections." It is unclear whether this is on purpose, or the band just forgot about it."

And of course, with a new album at stake and a dramatic stage being set for the album drop, the internet was always going to go a bit crazy.

They did

Saving the best for last:

Edited by Payal Puri

First published: 4 May 2016, 12:38 IST
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Sahil Bhalla @IMSahilBhalla

Sahil is a sports and tech correspondent on the speed news desk at Catch. A gadget freak, he loves offering free tech support to family and friends. He studied at Sarah Lawrence College, New York and worked previously for Scroll. He selectively boycotts fast food chains, worries about Arsenal, and travels whenever and wherever he can. Sahil is an unapologetic foodie and a film aficionado.
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