Release and Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Robert Christgau | |
| CMJ | (favorable) |
| Rolling Stone | |
When the album came out in January 1990, critical reception was mostly favorable: Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, and its readers and critics voted the Black Crowes 'Best New American Band' in 1990; the band appeared on the cover of the magazine's 605th issue (May 1991) following their firing from the ZZ Top tour in March that year. The issue's interview of Chris and Rich Robinson compared the band to 1970s acts, with journalist David Fricke explicitly citing Faces and The Rolling Stones and Rich Robinson mentioning Aerosmith. Allmusic gave the album four out of five stars, praising Rich Robinson's guitar playing and Chris Robinson's "appropriate vocal swagger". Robert Christgau, however, disliked the album, giving it a dud (which is the lowest grade in Christgau's rating system).
"Hard to Handle", "Jealous Again" and "Twice As Hard" broke into the Mainstream Rock Tracks charts, respectively reaching the first, fifth and eleventh position. By the end of the year, Shake Your Money Maker had sold one million copies and eventually sold two million more, thus receiving triple platinum certification. In 1991, "She Talks to Angels" and "Seeing Things" respectively reached the first and second position of the Mainstream Rock Tracks charts.
Read more about this topic: Shake Your Money Maker (album)
Famous quotes containing the words release and, release and/or reception:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)