"Rolling Stone" magazine's Ken Emerson said that its lengthy, vividly written songs make for a more challenging and romantic album than "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.", but still retain that album's ebullient music because of Springsteen and the E Street Band's masterful playing.In a less enthusiastic review for "Creem", Robert Christgau wrote that it does not cohere as a whole, although its livelier songs make it "the kind of album that will be fun to go back to" if Springsteen improves upon it.