Rebirth received generally negative reviews from contemporary
music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average score of 37, which indicates "generally unfavorable reviews", based on 21 reviews. at Metacritic and it is ranked sixth on the site's list of worst-reviewed albums.
Los Angeles Times critic Jeff Weiss called
Rebirth "one of the worst albums of the year so far", and Sam Wolfson of
NME called it an "absurd" "shlock-rock record".
Chicago Tribune critic
Greg Kot panned Wayne's stylistic change and described his lyrics as "crushingly banal".
AllMusic's David Jeffries called the album "a loud and ignorable bore". Christian Hoard of
Rolling Stone found Wayne's "taste in rock" to be "very questionable" and the album's flaw. Joe Clay of
The Times panned Wayne's singing and songwriting, calling his lyrics "devoid of humour and imagination". M.T. Richards of
PopMatters panned its music as "an endless stream of abysmally written, Auto Tune-drenched nothings".
Nathan Rabin of
The A.V. Club viewed the album's music and lyrics as clichéd, writing that it "plays like an over-the-top parody of a rock album". Christopher R. Weingarten of
The Village Voice wrote that Wayne's lyrics "still walk some fascinating line between signifying unmistakable genius, curious savant, or total dick", but viewed the album as lacking substance, stating "Wayne's big problem is that he seems to like the
idea of rock music more than any actual rock music itself".
Pitchfork Media's Ryan Dombal called
Rebirth "an unlikely, unqualified, and quite unbelievable rock album".
Slant Magazines Jesse Cataldo described it as "a total misperception of what makes a rock record" and found its sound "mostly unrecognizable, a twisted amalgam of tacky set pieces collected from throughout the genre's history".
Alexis Petridis of
The Guardian stated, "Given that everyone knows Carter can do so much better than this, it all smacks a bit of condescension, of locating a different audience, then talking down to them". Leah Greenblatt of
Entertainment Weekly stated, "Michael Jordan|[Michael] Jordan returned to the basketball court after one
ill-fated season in the farm leagues; we can only hope for the same for Wayne". Despite the album's negative reception, several music critics wrote favorably of the single "
Drop the World" and
Eminem's verse on the song, viewing it as a highlight on the album. Charles Aaron of
Spin commented that "perhaps the greatest musical tantrum of 2010 ... occurs on perhaps the most misbegotten musical pratfall of 2010." In his consumer guide for
MSN Music,
Robert Christgau felt
Rebirth was "underrated" and gave it a two-star honorable mention, indicating a "likable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well enjoy." He cited "Drop the World" and "American Star" as highlights and quipped, "So smart and scary about death as the flip side of ecstasy, so unperceptive and embarrassing about
emo". The only website to give the album a positive reception is RapReviews, whose author, John-Michael Bond, gave it a score of seven out of ten and said that the album "has moments of genius, and those moments almost always coincide with coupling fiery emotion with punk's propulsive rhythm." Other reviews are average or mixed or negative, with Devin Chanda of
Billboard giving the album a score of 56 out of 100; Steve Jones of
USA Today giving it two stars out of four;
Uncut giving it a score of two stars out of five; Jason Draper of
Yahoo! Music UK giving it a score of three stars out of ten; Joseph Patterson of
BBC Music giving it an unfavorable review; Ryan Faughnder of No Ripcord giving it a score of two stars out of ten; and Joshua Errett of
Now giving it a score of only one star out of five.
HotNewHipHop suggested that the negative reception to the album was a "glaring [example] of the music media immediately shutting down Black artists for stepping outside of the confines of what is deemed as ‘Black music.’" == Commercial performance ==