Too High to Die sold very well due to the success of its single "Backwater", which reached No. 2 and No. 11 on the
Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and
Modern Rock Tracks charts respectively. The album reached No. 1 on the Heatseekers chart, making it one of the Meat Puppets' most successful and highest ranking albums to date. The album was certified gold by the
RIAA on October 6, 1994.
Ian Christe in his May 1994 review for
CD Review wrote, "At best, this disc shows a mellow maturation of the quirky poetry on the Puppets' early
SST records, when they used punk's freedom to write their own language for love of life." The rarely-seen video for "We Don't Exist" was nominated for "Best Metal/Hard Rock Video" at the
1995 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost to
White Zombie's "
More Human than Human". In May 2012, the title of a book about the Meat Puppets' history borrowed part of the album's title,
Too High to Die: Meet the Meat Puppets. In July 2014,
Guitar World placed
Too High to Die at number 44 in their "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list. ==Track listing==