This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
And Finally Artist News Brands & Merch Business News
Radiohead put “fragmentary time waster” up for sale
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 18 June 2020
Radiohead are getting in on that big money jigsaw game. Although they’re calling their new piece of band merch a “fragmentary time waster”. It’s a sheet of cardboard cut up into interlocking pieces. Call it what you want.
The band follow These New Puritans into the now – I’d say – burgeoning experimental rock jigsaw market. And while TNP put out two puzzles each with 500 pieces, Radiohead are going all in with a single 1000 piece mega-brainteaser featuring artwork by Com Lag.
Enticing fans, the band say this: “Bored? Got nothing to do? Fed up? Nothing on the TV. No way! What you gonna do? Gonna get a jigsaw innit. Tell me more, tell me more! A Radiohead jigsaw. Has it got loads and loads of pieces? A thousand. Is it really difficult and will it take ages? I reckon so, yeah. Sounds great! Is it affordable? Depends on your finances. Is there a chance you could still be bored after completing it? Yeah probably. Sounds amazing!”
Yes, depending on your finances, £29.99 may or may not seem reasonable for this particular item. That’s a per-piece rate of 0.02999p, compared to These New Puritans’ 0.046p. I’m not sure how helpful it is breaking it down like that, but you do get more jigsaw for your money with Radiohead. These New Puritans gave all their profits to the NHS though, while Radiohead are seemingly keeping all theirs for themselves.
I guess the question here is, do you want another Radiohead album (funded by jigsaw money) more than you want a functioning healthcare system (funded, for some reason, partly by jigsaws rather than just taxes)? Well, the TNP puzzles are sold out anyway, so you can give your money to Radiohead guilt free.
Best of all, the jigsaws aren’t going to be sent out until late August, so you’ll probably have forgotten all about it by then and it’ll be a nice surprise. We’ll also probably be deep into our second or third COVID-19 lockdown by that time, so it’ll give you something to do once that happens. Check it out here.
