Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Robert Christgau | C+ |
| Robert Christgau | |
Although "Lawyers in Love" and "For a Rocker" were successful singles, the album received a lukewarm reaction by critics. In his review for Allmusic, William Ruhlmann referred to Browne's often overlooked songcrafting, but wrote "...the craft, and the familiar tightness of Browne's veteran studio/live band, couldn't hide the essentially retread nature of much of this material."
Critic Robert Christgau called the album "A satire on, celebration of, and lament for the upper-middle classmates an Orange County liberal knows like he knows his neighbor's backyard..."
Rolling Stone critic Christopher Connelly had a more positive response. In reviewing the album at the time of its release, Connelly felt that the record was "a more nervy, intelligent LP than its predecessor" and "a welcome widening of perspective that allows Browne to escape, once and for all, the L.A. albatross that has hung around his neck."
But he despised the "wretched" 5:20 of "antinuke agitprop" that is "Say It Isn't True'" for displaying the worst traits of the album: "No quarrel here with the sentiments he's expressing, but to gravely intone, 'There always has been and always will be war,' over a 'Kum BaYa'-like coo of 'Say it isn't true' — surely, you say to yourself, he can't be that stupid."
Read more about this topic: Lawyers In Love
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