2020 is proving to be a big year for new music, with artists such as Foo Fighters, Haim, and Weezer hyping up fans at San Luis Obispo High School and around the world for new albums (for a longer list that includes some release dates, check out this article).

One group of fans, however, is not going to get a new album, despite being tricked into thinking they would: the Arctic Monkeys fans. 

  What started with a ‘leaked’ song released on YouTube snowballed into fake NME articles, really angry tweets, and even a Genius page for the fake song, giving credits to frontman Alex Turner as well as artists Avril Lavigne, Fetty Wap, and Chance the Rapper. The name of the ‘leaked’ album you ask? “Salt and Milk.”

  “I couldn’t tell if it was real or not. It seemed like something [Arctic Monkeys] would do, but I wasn’t sure,” said junior and “Brick by Brick” super fan Hayden Ventrella.

  Considering the band based their last release, 2018 album “Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino” around a hotel and casino and taqueria stationed on the moon, naming a whole album after the disgusting combo of salt and milk didn’t seem too far off base.

  “I’m so glad [Alex Turner] doesn’t have Twitter, because if he did, I feel like his dumbness would actually name the next album “Salt and Milk” just to piss everyone off,” said @arcticstripes on Twitter.

  The large-scale prank apparently started after Alex Turner imitator and YouTuber AdzBrandMusic was approached by several Instagram fan accounts who wanted to use his Turner-esque vocals on a fake demo. He reluctantly agreed, and Salt and Milk was born.

  “I’m a salt and milk / I’ve got no salt / I can’t salt at night / The world’s growing milk / I lost my milk to the milking stones / I lost my salt to the salting stones,” read the lyrics on the song’s Genius page.

  As for the photoshopped NME article titled “New Arctic Monkeys Album set to Release in April 2020?”, AM drummer Matt Helders was falsely quoted stating that there would be some tracks with piano, paying tribute to “Tranquility Base,” though most would use mainly guitar, and the final track would be a remastered version of an old demo.

  “Salt and milk has become too big for its own good,” said Twitter user @audelinemirage.

  The lack of promotion for the album didn’t at first trouble fans. Maybe the band was pulling a media-blackout akin to what The Strokes did for their 2013 album, “Comedown Machine.” However, fans bitterly caught on to the joke when all release dates for the album were set as April 1, 2020.

  For now, fans will continue 2020 without any new content from the Sheffield band.