The Role of the Critic:
Radiohead's Kid A & The Next Great Rock 'N Roll Swindle Page 5

Guitar.com is a musician's site where bulletin boards are frequented, opinions are strong, and no band is too holy to be tread upon. My post was blunt and to the point seeking audience reaction to the album (print out of results is attached). Like I had hoped for, the audience reaction was a little more spread than Rolling Stone's survey. Of the fourteen relevant posts, five were positive, three were negative, four were neutral, and only two chalked it up to "pure genius". This helped confirm that response to the album did not necessarily have to be put into two polar opposite categories of "genius" or "crap/hoax". In effect by having a substantial middle ground, this takes away the argument that those who hated it, in reference to Fricke's review, were not able to "decode" it properly. It also further backs Condit's opinion that people, "can construct a variety of responses to any given mass mediated text" (Condit, 108). The text can be liked or not liked on many levels, not just two.

The final portion of the audience study came from the peer audience, other musicians. People such as Shirley Manson of Garbage, "just couldn't get into it" while the Edge from U2 thought there was "some real integrity there" (followmearound.com). Dunst of Chumbawumba took a unique middle-ground stance of liking the album but not they hype saying, "What was all the fuss about? I was expecting some challenging, difficult soundscape that would force me to go to the toilet after three songs and on returning my ears would bleed and my head explode. No chance I'm afraid. I do actually like this album and it's quite an interesting place - three feet up Thom's arse - but they'll be poring over this at the local prog-rock-soc and that disturbs me" (followmearound.com).


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