Well, maybe those exact words aren't used but that's the implication. He's saying that as good as "Kid A" is, Radiohead should have aimed for the mainstream instead. The fact is that dumbing yourself down for the mainstream these days seriously means dumbing yourself down for a bellweather audience that won't really care about your quality music. U2 couldn't get "Kite" played in every city's mainstream radio station much, so they bailed on a track in which they believed. The industry has to get less commercially-obsessed. The answer is not to dumb everything down, so a kid not really into music will suddenly be blown away. I don't have links because I read these things years ago, but the quotation you mentioned was one of them. Bono has made these comments in the past. Also this obsession with trying self-consciously trying to be like the Beatles in popularity is tragic and has led to some real creative mistakes by the band. How about trying to be U2 and not some neo-Beatles? He thinks the original route is a mistake, and it's pretty obvious, given the U2's last 2 albums.
