The Radiohead “Wall Of Ice” Debacle: WTF
Photo via Dead Air Space
So, to recap:
* Last week, a new Radiohead song, “These Are My Twisted Words,” leaked out of nowhere. As a rabid Radiohead fan, I can say it’s the first time anything has leaked from the band since Hail To The Thief in 2003.
* Said track came with an accompanying file that seemed to indicate an EP entitled Wall of Ice would be out on Monday, Aug. 17. (Ahem: Today.)
* On the commercial end, the band has a brand-new online download store they are presumably trying to get attention for. To that end, they released a charity single, “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” in the last few weeks. An EP would be a bigger publicity push.
* Someone — not Radiohead — registered Wallofice.com and pointed it to Radiohead’s new download store.
Now:
* Wall of Ice did not come out last night/this morning. Instead, Radiohead released “These Are My Twisted Words” for free (awesome) on their blog. It is the identical file that leaked. There is no mention of Wall Of Ice on the band’s blog, despite their obvious Internet savvy.
* Whoever owns WallofIce.com is a sanctimonious prick who has the balls to write “Don’t just publish bullshit only to get hits on your webpage. Don’t just create your own stories after reading one post on a message board,” after deliberately registering a Web site to fuel the fire of this hoax. Fuck you, dude.
WTF:
* It seems that the band probably leaked the song themselves. But, uh, why? Just to fuck with fans? Wall of Ice didn’t generate the massive interest that In Rainbows did — only a few of us (myself included) were freaking out on Twitter last night. And why would somebody buy the domain — just to be a dick?
Anyway:
* New Radiohead!
Radiohead – “These Are My Twisted Words”: mp3
Such a let down. It also rendered my “review” of the “EP” as rather “useless”. Oh well.
http://radioexile.com/2009/08/17/first-official-review-of-the-new-radiohead-releasenon-release
All of this shit has kind of made me laugh, to be honest. Sorry.
Yeah, I don’t really see how this is a “debacle”. Radiohead released a new song.
The song is called ‘These Are My Twisted Words’. I’m not sure it was the website owner who wrote “Don’t just publish bullshit only to get hits on your webpage. Don’t just create your own stories after reading one post on a message board.” He posted his own mp3 on the site but it was taken down and replaced with that message. I agree with it not being a debacle as well. We all got a new Radiohead song and some artwork for free. Not a bad deal.
excellent recap of the highs and lows that we superfans went through in the last few days. i share your outrage at the dutch douche who registered wallofice.com – “don’t just create your own stories”?? bro, YOU CREATED THAT STORY by setting up a hoax URL!
Heh. Yeah, sorry man, but I have to agree with Christina; the whole thing has to make you laugh, surely
Also, if you do a whois lookup you can see the registered owner of the domain… as to whether those are the real details or fake ones is another question, but you can check it out at http://www.whois-search.com/whois/wallofice.com
Personally, I reckon everyone needs to chill on this one
Thanks for the download! Lucky me – I didn’t find out about this until I saw your post this morning. Glad I didn’t have to go through the anxious waiting.