10 Most Bizarre Music Videos Of The 21st Century

Radiohead aren't one for convention. Just go and listen to Kid A. And this willingness for experimentation extends to their music videos as well. House of Cards was filmed without cameras, but instead high tech sensors. Paranoid Android's animated video sparked controversy and confusion. Burn the Witch is no different. To summarise in one sentence, Burn the Witch combines Trumpton and The Wicker Man.

The story of the video revolves around a mob rule community in which an inspector comes to visit and ends up being a human sacrifice before escaping a terrible fate. What makes this video so special is the attention to detail. The song is a critique of mob mentality, scapegoating and Orwellian group thought.

How do they choose to allude to this? By having nobody in the video with mouths in order to speak out, rendering them expressionless. The only ones that do are the man with the X on his door (one of the titular witches, a metaphor for scapegoats), the inspector and of course the bird.

This is one of Radiohead's most socially aware and political songs to date, and given the time of release it was fitting that this video was as unnerving and surreal as it was. It had to reflect the political landscape it existed in.