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After sitting back and letting the critics handle their PR, the art rockers of Radiohead will ride a wave of critical praise to the top of the "Billboard" album chart next week.

According to sales figures released by SoundScan on Wednesday, the group's "Kid A" sold more than 207,000 copies in its first week in stores to debut at number one on next week's album chart.

Radiohead centerpiece Thom Yorke and company refused to run the usual promotional gauntlet (eschewing music videos and most interviews) and let "Rolling Stone" hail the album as "a work of deliberately inky, often irritating obsession" and "Spin" dub it "the best anti-rock album of the year." The strategy (explored by our sister site Sonicnet in "Radiohead's Anti-Publicity Campaign Pays Off With #1 Album") paid off in a big way, as the band will bump this week's chart-topper, Mystikal, down to number two on the new chart.

The move also puts Radiohead at the front of a strong pack of new arrivals, including top 10 debuts from Green Day and Scarface. Pop-minded punk trio Green Day sold more than 155,000 copies of its "Warning" to debut at number four, while rapper Scarface moved just under 134,000 copies of his "Last Of A Dying Breed" to land at number seven

Venerable singer/songwriter Paul Simon also makes a bit of a splash next week, as his first album in three years, "You're The One," sold more than 59,000 copies to debut at number 19, one notch above the latest offering from new age kingpin Yanni.

The week's other notable debuts include Guru's "Jazzmatazz, Vol. 3: Streetsoul" at 32, Travis Tritt's "Down The Road I Go" at 51, the second soundtrack CD from "Dawson's Creek" at 59, Luis Miguel's "Vivo" at 93, Robbie Williams' "Sing When You're Winning" at 110, Paul Oakenfold's "Perfecto Presents Another World" at 114, Kenny Rogers' "There You Go Again" at 121, Indigo Girls' "Retrospective" at 128, Van Morrison and Linda Gail Lewis' "You Win Again" at 161, Death Row Records' "Too Gangsta For Radio" collection at 171, and Soul Assassins' "Soul Assassins Chapter II" at 178.

Green Day

When you think of politically minded punk rock bands, you usually think of groups such as Rage Against The Machine or Bad Religion, not Green Day.

But with the Northern Cali band's new album, "Warning," in stores this week, fans might be surprised to hear some social commentary strewn throughout the record.

"Minority," the first single from the "Warning" LP, is perhaps Green Day's most overtly political song to date, and frontman Billie Joe Armstrong believes that such a worldly perspective was likely the result of the extended genesis behind the new album, the follow-up to 1997's "Nimrod."

"With 'Nimrod there were a lot of songs so I think that one was probably the most difficult " Armstrong told MTV News. "And this time, it was just sort of waiting for inspired moments and not trying to force anything. So in that sense was the easiest .

On "Minority," Green Day name-checks -- and then summarily disses -- the Moral Majority, and with the presidential election a month away, the band offered up its thoughts on the October 3 debate between Democratic candidate Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush.

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Page Updated Sat Mar 10, 2001 9:06pm EST