Arcade Fire claims to have put their album on a $109 fidget spinner
Earlier today, Arcade Fire fans went through a roller coaster of emotions as the Canadian band announced their new album, Everything Now, was available on a limited-edition fidget spinner, and then announced it was promptly sold out.
The listing, showing a black-and-white fidget spinner with a USB connection, was supposedly on sale for $109 and included an additional booklet. A few weeks back, Pitchfork reported that the band had denounced unofficial Arcade Fire fidget spinners that were being sold on Amazon, with the band saying that “official, ‘infinite content’ spinners are coming.” (For reference, Infinite Content is the name of Arcade Fire’s upcoming tour and also happens to be a hilarious name for a limited-edition fidget spinner.)
On June 23rd, the band tweeted the fidget spinners were available for pre-order, and then today, announced they were available. Sadly, and coincidentally, people also found it was immediately sold-out.
Aside from the fact that the weird ergonomics of the spinner’s USB connection likely make it un-spinnable, would it even balance correctly with the tech ingloriously hanging out of one side? Also, let’s not forget Arcade Fire has a history of pranking their stans in ways that leave people confused or slightly bummed out. They brought out a fake Daft Punk at Coachella. They made a fake Stereogum website called Stereoyum, which featured a review before the review before the review of the new album. Once, at a show, the band played under pseudonym the Reflektors and faked out the crowd by opening with white noise. That night, even band member Win Butler said of Arcade Fire’s humor, “It won’t be the last time we think something is funny that someone else doesn’t think is funny.”
Point being, it’s likely the fidget spinner is a joke. Arcade Fire probably thought the idea of a fidget spinner / USB combo was funny because of something about chindogu, or millennials, or whatever oddness goes on in the meta minds of Arcade Fire.