Radiohead's new album a sequel to "OK Computer"?
To be truly legendary, a band needs a hidden message for fans to discover. The Beatles had the Paul is Dead rumor. Pink Floyd had the Dark Side of Oz.
Now, according to the indie-music blog Puddlegum, Radiohead has joined the list. Leading up to the 10/10 digital-only release date for the band's new In Rainbows album, Radiohead released cryptic messages to its fans involving the letter X (Roman numeral 10). Puddlegum believes the message goes beyond the release date, but instead suggests that In Rainbows is a sort of sequel to the band's breakthrough album, OK Computer, which was released a little more than 10 years ago, and was originally entitled Zeroes and Ones, and which (like the new album) has ten letters in its title, and...well, just read it for yourself.
I'm currently listening to the suggested playlist that combines both albums, and so far the connections seem tenuous at best--for instance, the four-beat "beep" count at the end of the first song on the playlist, "Airbag," is at a completely different tempo than the next song, "15 Step." But the songs do seem to fit well together, and overall it's a good playlist. Especially if, like me, you haven't listened to OK Computer in a long time after burning out on it.
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff. 
