“On The Corner was savagely butchered by critics ánd musicians (even by musicians who played on the actual album):

• Stan Getz (saxophone-player):
  “that music is worthless. It means nothing; there is no form, no content, and it barely swings”;

• Jon Brown (Jazz Journal):
  “it sounds merely as if the band had selected a chord and decided to worry hell out of it for three-quarters of an hour” and “I’d like to think that nobody could be so easily pleased as to dig this record to any extent”;

• Bill Coleman (critic, biographer Miles Davis in 1974):
  “an insult to the intellect of the people”;

• Dave Liebman (saxophone-player on On The Corner):
  “I didn’t think much of it” and “the music appeared to be pretty chaotic and disorganized”;

• Paul Buckmaster (initial structurist On The Corner):
  “It was my least favourite Miles album”;

• Downbeat magazine:
  “Take some chunka-chunka-chunka rhythm, lots of little background percussion diddle-around sounds, some electronic mutations, add simple tune lines that sound a great deal alike and play some spacey solos. You’ve got a ‘groovin’’ formula, and you stick with it interminably to create your ‘magic’. But is it magic or just repetitious boredom?”.

Within the jazz community in particular, Miles Davis was mercilessly and ruthlessly handled. The album was completely misunderstood. Just as Bob Dylan was called Judas when he started making music using electric instruments, Miles Davis was blamed for being a “sell out”. Of course, it was clear for many that Miles Davis was being extremely innovative (like using a wah-wahpedals for his trumpet) and helped bring about completely new genres of music, like jazz-rock and fusion. But the rigid jazz-audiences would have nothing to do with it. On The Corner‘s critique was so devastating, because it “proved”, beyond the shadow of doubt, that Miles Davis was no longer the king of jazz, but just a fallen icon.”