The Role of the Critic:
Radiohead's Kid A & The Next Great Rock 'N Roll Swindle Page 2

Setting the Stage

By late September of 2000, the proverbial pins were setup for Kid A to knock down. Critics were drooling at just the thought of it, a new Radiohead album. OK Computer, Radiohead's 1997 offering, had topped album of the year charts everywhere and filled the airwaves with a fresh sound that had both audiences and critics singing praise. The critical build up of OK Computer is very important to note. This is because the media critics as a whole had pushed themselves into a position in which they might look foolish if Radiohead produced anything other than a masterpiece for their next album. While in many instances it would be a hasty move to group critics into a whole unit, it would not be in this case. While there surely were negative critics of OK Computer, they were few and far between and were viewed as the ones who were just not perceptive enough to get it. The stars had aligned for Radiohead, so to speak. Rollingstone, Spin, and Q Magazine were amongst the heavy backers. Q Magazine went as far as naming OK Computer the best album of all-time.

Rolling Stone Magazine's David Fricke stated, "Radiohead's third album is one of the best rock records of the year in large part because it is the most inscrutable", but if Radiohead was inscrutable on their third album, they would be downright and aimlessly obscure on their next (Fricke). Indeed, Kid A came into the picture more off kilter than a Curt Schilling curve ball and many were not sure what to make of it. Song structures were not standard if even apparent at all, melodies were extremely complex and hard to digest, and there was an overabundance of seemingly arbitrary noise. Was Radiohead in a naked disguise waiting for critics to balk and shout that they were indeed wearing no clothes (in reference to Sloop's use of Hans Christian Andersen's story), or was this the masterpiece that critics had waited for and would be foolish and naïve to overlook? Critics scrambled for what to make of it.

Page 1 of Role of the Critic
Page 2 of Role of the Critic
Page 3 of Role of the Critic
Page 4 of Role of the Critic
Page 5 of Role of the Critic
Page 6 of Role of the Critic