The Revival - Legacy

Legacy

In a retrospective review, Yahoo! Music's Scott Wilson dubs The Revival "the breakthrough album that offered a huge string of hits, and assured them their place in the musical hierarchy", adding that "many of these are instantly recognizable now and the overall quality is great with solid songwriting and self-production". Allmusic editor Alex Henderson gives the album four-and-a-half out of five stars and praises its "organic and soulful" sound. He writes that "Tony! Toni! Toné! managed to appeal to urban contemporary audiences while expressing a love of 1970s soul and funk ... Many of the urban contemporary releases of 1990 were gutless and homogenized, but The Revival is an album that had artistic integrity as well as commercial appeal".

In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Fred Schuers gives the album three out of five stars and asserts that it "proves the group's lyrical cleverness is matched by its musical talent", writing that "The Revival avoids history and humor for improved songwriting and production on dance tracks such as 'Feels Good' and love ballads such as 'Whatever You Want'". Jason Heller of The A.V. Club cites it as the new jack swing genre's "masterpiece ... an artistic triumph in a genre that generally coasted on impeccable craft." While noting the new jack swing style of its hit single "Feels Good", Sam Chennault of Rhapsody feels that "the rest of the album does give a nod to classic Bay Area funk and hints at the subsequent innovations of key member Raphael Saadiq".