For Everyman - Reception

Reception

In her November 1973 review in Rolling Stone, Janet Maslin wrote that "for inwardly panoramic songwriting of an apocalyptic bent, Jackson Browne's second album is rivaled only by his first (the second one wins), and Jackson himself is rivaled by nobody," adding that "his work is a unique fusion of West Coast casualness and East Coast paranoia, easygoing slang and painstaking precision, child's-eye romanticizing and adult's-eye acceptance." Mostly complimentary throughout, she noted that his singing had improved since the first album, and consciously reviews the album by placing it squarely within the context of the times: "Jackson's concerns, even more than his genius for rendering them simultaneously intimate and universal, are the basis for the album's unique strengths. He stands alone as a composite of ambivalence about maturity, weariness of the race, fear that love may not be enough ... confusion over whether or not a lasting home can be found in a progressively nightmarish world. He also stands alone as someone who, resigned to all that, is still willing to seek out some quiet way of weathering his time's new trials. Brilliantly conceived, incomparably immediate, For Everyman truly earns its title."

Acknowledging that Browne had a large task ahead of him in following his debut Jackson Browne in his review for Allmusic, William Ruhlmann claimed Browne "turned to some of his secondary older material, which was still better than most people's best and, ironically, more accessible..." and summarized the album as a "less consistent collection than Browne's debut album. But Browne's songwriting ability remained impressive."

In a 1999 Rolling Stone review, Anthony DeCurtis claimed the album as uneven and that "Browne is still searching for his true voice on For Everyman. Is he the genial rogue of "Red Neck Friend" or the mystical dreamer of "Our Lady of the Well"? He will find that voice the following year on his masterpiece, Late for the Sky. But on For Everyman, he was testing his various talents with obvious joy, because, like his audience, he was just discovering them."

Music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B grade, writing "Even as he lists toward the pretentious and the vague, the reflective evenness of Browne's delivery sets up an expectation of cogency that on this album is satisfied only by such relatively unambitious songs as "These Days," "Red Neck Friend," and the charming "Ready or Not." Which save it for me."