[2] In July 2015, the bookmaker William Hill suspended bets after a customer placed £15,000 at ten-to-one odds on Radiohead, suspecting insider knowledge.

[3] Radiohead first submitted "Man of War", an unreleased song written in the 1990s, which the singer, Thom Yorke, had once described as an homage to Bond themes.

[4][5] The Spectre team liked "Man of War", but rejected it when they discovered it had not been written for the film and was therefore ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

"[6] Radiohead's producer, Nigel Godrich, said the experience was a "real waste of energy" and that it disrupted work on A Moon Shaped Pool.

[16] Pitchfork named "Spectre" the week's "Best New Music", finding that it was "one of the finest Radiohead songs in some years, much more than a one-off curiosity".

[13] Chris DeVille of Stereogum picked "Spectre" as one of the week's best songs, writing that it was "beautiful" and a reminder that "Radiohead still have life left in them".

[17] After "Writing's on the Wall" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song the following week, DeVille wrote that "Spectre" was "the more masterful of the two tracks".

[18] In 2020, the Guardian named "Spectre" the 38th-best Radiohead song, writing: "Thom Yorke is persuasive – if not exactly suave – in character as the secret agent, but credit Jonny Greenwood, as we often must, with its emotive thwack.