The latest Radiohead album must be just around the corner. The band are headlining Primavera, they recently registered a new company and have shared a rejected theme song from the Alvin & The Chipmunks movie franchise. But what do we really know about their much-anticipated ninth album?
There will be instruments
Radiohead have shown great interest in instruments, since almost day one. Some of their recording tools have been consistent (guitars, drums, bass, gong), other instruments come and go (trombone, clarinet, lemon, oboe). So, we can be pretty certain that Radiohead’s ninth album will probably have instruments on it.
George Martin will produce
Unless something very unexpected happens, George Martin is likely to resume his role as Radiohead’s “sixth member”. He’s produced all of Radiohead’s albums, including their 1997 masterpiece Abbey Computer, and also plays in Thom Yorke’s side-project, Patterns Of Grease, with Flea from The Red Hot Big Lebowski.
The artwork will be designed by Jamie Hewlett
Jamie Hewlett has created every Radiohead album cover since 1995’s Fake Plastic Beach. In collaboration with frontman Thom Yorke, Hewlett also helped to invent several of Radiohead’s other characters, including Ed O’Brien, Jonny Greenwood, Philip Selway and Kapitan Colin The Magik Wagamama Monkey.
It will be a surprise release
Before every artist from Beyoncé to Wilco was in the habit of dropping records like bombs on Guernica, Radiohead helped pioneer the idea of a surprise release. Strained Binbags was announced in 2007 with just ten days notice and a pay-what-you-want-but-preferably-£14.99 download price. 2011’s The Clingy Whims was equally unorthodox: the band announced the album by tattooing the moon on the week of release and the LP came wrapped in an origami bowler hat.
There will be zany lyrics
Unlike most musicians of his generation, Thom Yorke’s writing remains very much in the tradition of the English music hall. But will he be able to top the irreverent sauciness of past Radiohead glories such as ‘Hello Harry Where’d You Get That Gammon?’, ‘Bow Wow Whoopsidah’, ‘Crikey Darling, That’s Big Potata’ and ‘Crazy Daisy Stuck Her Head In The Oven Again’? The world can't wait to find out!
