"Exhausted" was released as a promotional single ahead of the album on January 8, 1995 to Eddie Vedder's pirate radio station, Self-Pollution Radio. Since its release, it has been seen as one of the band and album's best songs. When ranking every Foo Fighters song for
Spin magazine in 2014, Dan Weiss placed it 22, stating it is "pretty ballsy for a promo single, running almost six minutes long with stretches of feedback and murky vocals", calling it an "excellent opening salvo"while noting that it "shows that the band was never going to be predictable, even if those who only know their Modern Rock chart-toppers might think otherwise." Ranking the 20 best Foo Fighters songs for
Exclaim! magazine, Dave MacIntyre placed it number 11, stating that it "sounds most akin to bands from the past (think
Dinosaur Jr. or
Yo La Tengo), and it's easily one of their noisier and grittier ones". In a ranking of every Foo Fighters song for Consequence of Sound, Michael Roffman placed it number 11, calling it a "sludgy, psychedelic ballad", while noting that that it "stays true" to
Nirvana's 1993 album
In Utero. Dave Grohl called it his favorite on
Foo Fighters. Sam Law placed it at number 13 in his ranking of the 20 greatest Foo Fighters songs, stating it "was a sludgy, six-minute statement smothered in fuzz and charged with the same loud loneliness Dave had helped benchmark with Nirvana's
In Utero less than two years earlier." == Credits and personnel ==