Before and After Science - Reception

Reception

On the album's initial release, the album received very positive reviews from rock critics. Writing for Creem, Joe Fernbacher called the Before and After Science "the perfect Eno album". while Mitchell Schneider wrote a positive review in Crawdaddy!, stating that he couldn't "remember the last time a record took such a hold of me—and gave me such an extreme case of vertigo, too". In Down Beat, Russel Shaw wrote that " is another typically awesome, stunning and numbing Brian Eno album—the record Pink Floyd could make if they set their collective mind to it." Tom Carson of Rolling Stone noted that the album "is less immediately ingratiating than either Taking Tiger Mountain or Here Come the Warm Jets. Still, the execution here is close to flawless, and despite Eno's eclecticism. the disparate styles he employs connect brilliantly." Critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A- rating, stating that he "didn't like the murkiness of the quiet, largely instrumental reflections that take over side two." but didn't find that it "diminishes side one's oblique, charming tour of the popular rhythms of the day". In 1979, Before and After Science was voted one of the best albums of the year in the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1978.

Modern reviews of Before and After Science have also been positive. David Ross Smith of Allmusic awarded the album the highest rating of five stars stating that it ranks alongside Here Come the Warm Jets and Another Green World "as the most essential Eno material". The music webzine Tiny Mix Tapes awarded the album their highest rating, stating that it "is not only one of the best albums in Eno's catalog, but of the 1970s as a whole." The webzine Pitchfork Media gave Before and After Science a positive, but less enthusiastic, review calling the album a "neutered star in search of fuel, boasting only "King's Lead Hat" for the pop world, and the luminous pure prog-jazz of "Energy Fools the Magician" for the out-rock contingent". Ten days later Pitchfork placed Before and After Science at number one hundred on their list of "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s" referring to it as a "lovely, charming album" and going on to state that, while "not formally groundbreaking, it's frequently overlooked when discussing great albums from an era that's romanticized as placing premiums on progression and innovation-and particularly in the context of Eno's career, which is so full of both".