Music fans love to build conspiracy theories and pick apart details in their favorite artist’s music. That being said, there are quite a few weird mysteries in the world of rock music, and not all of them have been solved. Let’s take a look at some of the most intriguing and somewhat underrated mysteries in rock music history, and break down whether or not those mysteries have been solved!
1. The Stolen Green Day Album
Sadly, this rock music mystery has never been explicitly solved. In the early 2000s, punk band Green Day was hard at work on their new record Cigarettes & Valentines. Unfortunately, the record never came to be. After recording a slew of demos for the album, the tapes were stolen. The band went on to record American Idiot instead, which has since become their most beloved album. But what happened to those original tapes? Who stole them?
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Allegedly, Green Day has since found those stolen tapes. However, they did not reveal the identity of who stole them, nor how they came to acquire them years after they went missing.
2. Publius Enigma
Out of all the mysteries from rock music history on this list, Publius has to be the most intriguing. Pink Floyd released the album The Division Bell back in 1994. With it, an online user named Publius began circulating fan forums with tales about the Publius Enigma and a promise to reward anyone who solves the mystery.
They went on to drop cryptic, bizarre clues and implored fans to listen to and analyze Pink Floyd’s lyrics to crack the code. It’s been about 30 years since then, and a crack in the case has never been confirmed… that we know of. Nick Mason allegedly said back in the 2000s that the band’s label created the online mystery for promotional purposes, but some fans don’t buy it.
3. The Mysterious Origins Of Elvis Presley’s “Without You”
Back in 1954, a teenage Elvis Presley recorded a demo song titled “Without You”. The origins of that song have been the subject of mystery for a hot minute. For years, nobody knew who the original singer of the song was. However, it looks like the “last mystery of Elvis” has finally been solved… though some fans aren’t 100% sure of its legitimacy. The above video dives into the mystery in more detail.
4. Radiohead’s Hidden Message
The music video for Radiohead’s “Just” single features a group of people walking around a man who is lying on the ground. When the people passing by ask why he’s on the ground, he says that he cannot tell them, as they won’t be able to handle his answer. The video ends with the main character eventually telling the people his reason for lying on the ground, and the revealed secret is hidden from the viewers. In the next scene, everyone else is lying on the ground.
So, what was the secret? Who knows! Radiohead was probably just messing with us. However, some fans have theorized that the whole music video was an allegory for false messiahs.
Photo by ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images
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