The Racket (Vinyl)

In its original American broadcast, "The Racket" was seen by an estimated 0.577 million household viewers with a 0.21 in the 18–49 demographics. This means that 0.21 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode.^[2] This was a 8% increase in viewership from the previous episode, which was watched by 0.533 million household viewers with a 0.20 in the 18-49 demographics.^[3]

"The Racket" received generally positive reviews from critics. Matt Fowler of IGN gave the episode a "good" 7.8 out of 10 and wrote in his verdict, "'The Racket' used more humor than usual to lean into its darker themes while also - you know - sticking it to Richie a little bit. It's much easier to accept him as a cad and a villain than as a protagonist and so when Lester turned the tables on him, it felt really good. The side story stuff involving Skip and the Donny Osmond records, and some of Zak's issues, seemed to fill up belt space, but the idea of one chaotic day at the office was good."^[4]

Dan Caffrey of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B+" grade and wrote, "Unlike previous episodes, director S.J. Clarkson skirts any kind of self-important message in favor of a panicked tone, flirting with several different musical styles and keeping the camerawork loose as she pogos from story to story."^[5]

Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Dad seems like kind of a dick in the brief moments we get to meet him. But Richie needs a favor — more specifically, an alibi for the night of Buck’s murder. Will he get it? Only grumpy Pops Finestra and next Sunday's episode know for sure."^[6] Noel Murray of Vulture gave the episode a 4 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Tonally, the Devon material is still out of synch with the rest of this show. It¿s consistently dour where the rest of the Vinyl is fairly lively. Thematically, however, her story line¿s been on-point. [...] Vinyl is a drama about passion, art, and culture in transition. What we've been learning each week is that, in the case of all three, everything's negotiable."^[7]

Gavin Edwards of The New York Times wrote, "In the real world of 1973, female musicians were outnumbered by their male counterparts — but they have it even harder on Vinyl. While the show has featured some fleeting impressions of distaff singers to liven up the soundtrack, the action is focused on manly men singing manly songs."^[8] Dan Martin of The Guardian wrote, "Finally, Vinyl delivers an episode that lives up to the promise of its premise. You suspect the writers had their Damascene moment after realising the Alice Cooper strand last week was the strongest thing about the series so far. If you're going to make a show about something as fundamentally hilarious as the business of rock’n’roll, you better make sure it's funny. And episode four, 'The Racket', is very funny."^[9]

Tony Sokol of Den of Geek gave the episode a 4 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "So the title works on three levels: The noise that the punk band is making; the bent-nosed goons making the scene behind the scenes and that fucking tennis racket. That's a lot of sonic pollution to smother Richie's head. It's a wonder he can think as straight as he does when he’s straight. His musical decisions are better when he's at least slightly curved."^[10] Robert Ham of Paste wrote, "For as much as their awful wigs and even worse facial hair terrifies me every week, I'm starting to think I'd prefer to follow the careers of all the characters that aren't Richie Finestra in Vinyl. I'm four episodes into this series, and I've already checked out on the main storylines involving the drug-addled head of American Century Records, his frustrated wife, and his involvement in the head crushing of a crazed radio impresario. That's supposed to be the exciting stuff. Instead, I just want to hang in the limo with the promotions guy, the sales guru, and the A&R head as they pass around insults like a fat spliff."^[11]

• "The Racket" at HBO
• "The Racket" at IMDb