Although not a commercial success,
Crazy Rhythms was critically acclaimed on release.
Paul Du Noyer of
NME said that the record was "a very good album. I think it might even be a great one." He observed that the band "sound like
Jonathan Richman trying to sound like
the Velvet Underground", as well as
Talking Heads, but that "somehow the way they
are so derivative is part of the Feelies' appeal". Du Noyer described the music as "a kind of cleanly suburban rock'n'roll which is simultaneously intense and simplistic" and that the band seemed like "boys next door" but "they're nothing of the sort". In a five-star review in
Sounds, Pete Silverton observed that for him, the album only worked when he listened to it alone, not with company, and that it blended "the drive of Richman's '
Roadrunner' and some of the tense meanderings of
Television". He summed up the album as "all light and fun over driving but muted city beats – a little jazz here, a little Latin American there and virtually no rock and roll; most every rhythmic play you can hear on New York radio, topped by cool, calm and collected vocals".
David Hepworth, in
Smash Hits, wrote that the band "have the power to really draw you into their strange little suburban world."
Melody Makers James Truman was less enthused, stating that the band's aim was to achieve a balance of being "intellectual, neurotic cissy" and ironic "Good American", but that at times "
Crazy Rhythms pushes too hard to get the balance right and falls uneasily between a send-up and a put-on, a masterpiece and an attractive, disposable novelty". Truman said that the album had "a fussier, more detailed sound than it needed", and concluded, "Conceptualists will love the Feelies ... I just wish they'd come on a little less coy and clever." In their retrospective review,
The Guardian called
Crazy Rhythms "one of those albums during whose course you hear the most exciting sound in music: things changing." With their very first album, The Feelies managed to speak directly to the zeitgeist of the American independent underground without becoming overexposed or repetitive."
Accolades Crazy Rhythms was placed at number 17 in
The Village Voices annual
Pazz & Jop critics' poll in 1980, beating out such notable critics' favorites as
David Bowie's
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps),
Joy Division's
Closer, and
the Specials'
debut album.
Crazy Rhythms was ranked number 49 in
Rolling Stone's list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s, In 2020,
Rolling Stone included
Crazy Rhythms in their "80 Greatest albums of 1980" list. == Track listing ==