Radiohead won’t stop shit-posting. The band joined TikTok on April Fools day this year, supplying a consistent stream of intriguing nonsense ever since. Joining a platform known for bite-sized videos often featuring quick punchlines or snappy dances seemed like an odd fit for Radiohead, a band most celebrated for their album-length work. Even more surprisingly, they recently remixed “Creep,” and put out “Creep- A Very 2021 Rmx” as their latest single. The new 9-minute mix literally stretches out the original, slowing down the recording and adding some sparse synths and extra vocals resulting in a warbly and nearly tuneless mess. “Creep – Very 2021 Rmx” revisits the band’s breakthrough single in an anything-but-sincere way.
As David Byrne outlined as he inducted Radiohead into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Radiohead’s methods of releasing and marketing their music have often been as interesting and influential as the music itself. In addition to its physical releases, they put out their 2000 record Kid A as an app. With In Rainbows in 2007, they became the first major band to use a “pay what you want” model. Additionally, with his solo album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, frontman Thom Yorke was the first artist to formally release an album behind a paywall on BitTorrent. Additionally, Thom Yorke shows no restraint in his critiques of Spotify and ardently advocates for alternatives to the current streaming model.
Of course, Radiohead aren’t quite trailblazing by engaging with TikTok. More than any social media platform, TikTok revolves around music. Virality on the platform can literally create pop stars and shift the musical landscape. Olivia Rodrigo converted her ubiquity on TikTok to bona fide pop stardom, not to mention critical acclaim, by releasing her debut album at the peak of her viral relevance. Additionally, social media savvy artists like Lil Nas X use the platform to create undeniably entertaining videos to promote their upcoming music, while reaching multiple times the audience that Radiohead does. But given Radiohead’s history, and the mystery surrounding their recent online output, it’s clear that they’re up to something.
Even if a bulk of Radiohead’s videos are nonsensical or willfully obtuse, you can glean a satirical and deeply jaded commentary on the way artists, or “creators,” perform on social media. Every video on the band’s page features a bald white man with an artificially large forehead and big eyes. The man sits at a news desk usually while dryly reciting little bits of useless information. But the series gets interesting when it breaks from this format. In the first video an off screen voice instructs the man to “say something.” To which the man responds “what do you want me to say? Tik Tok Tik Tok….” In an even more sinister clip, the man pleads with the offscreen voice “Dick, I’ve done everything I can,” before the voice dryly tells him “Do a dance.” Even though he refuses, he’s singing and dancing to Polish State Folk Ballet—perplexingly—in the next TikTok, posted three days later.
This narrative shows an, admittedly, very on-the-nose critique of TikTok and social media platforms like it, which reward constant content from their creators. The man at the desk seems trapped there, forced to provide his audience with vapid nonsense whether he likes it or not. Lil Nas X himself encapsulated this phenomenon perfectly in a darkly hilarious TikTok he posted ahead of a court date for Nike’s case against him. Lil Nas danced through hammed-up tears because, as he tells it, his label wouldn’t let him stop posting, even while his court date loomed.
“Creep – A Very 2021 Rmx” works as a more subtle version of this same criticism. Like social media platforms, streaming services reward consistent engagement, oftentimes over the quality art. While “Creep – A Very 2021 Rmx” provides next to no earnest entertainment value, that didn’t stop Spotify from awarding it the “latest release” spot on Radiohead’s homepage all the same. Content is content, and Spotify can’t tell the difference (or doesn’t care).
Radiohead’s 2021 content might be intriguing, even thought-provoking. But as far as content goes, it commits the cardinal sin: it isn’t entertaining. In their most recent TikTok, posted July 21st, the man behind the news desk responds to a surprisingly direct comment from a fan that tells them exactly that: “this is not entertaining.” “I can only apologize,” the man pleads, before the off-camera voice interrupts with, “It’s not really going that well, is it?”
Radiohead seems reluctant to make the end goal (if there is an end goal) of their 2021 content clear. They could very well be using TikTok like countless pop artists are, to create buzz ahead of releasing new music. But as it is, Radiohead’s TikTok page works as unsettling commentary on the grueling requirements artists are expected to meet with the quantity, consistency, and entertainment value of their output. Entertainers like Lil Nas X constantly supply thoroughly entertaining content and seem to take the worst in stride. When held to the same expectations, the man behind the news desk starts to crack, revealing how bleak and unforgiving these expectations are.
