For instance, "The Ballad of TV Violence (I'm Not the Only Boy)" is about serial killer Richard Speck, "Daddy Should Have Stayed in High School" is about an ephebophile, and "Oh, Candy" is about a photographer friend of the band, Marshall Mintz, who committed suicide.

Charles M. Young, writing for Rolling Stone, said the album had a "heavy emphasis on basics with a strain of demented violence" and that the lyrics "run the gamut of lust, confusion and misogyny, growing out of rejection and antiauthoritarian sentiments about school—all with an element of wit.

"[6] Ira Robbins of Trouser Press noted the album's "wall-of-guitar sound" and said the band was "sarcastic, smart, nasty, powerful, tight, casual, and destined for something great.

"[9] Juliana Hatfield, speaking to Melody Maker in 1993, praised Cheap Trick as "the quintessential rock record" and one that "entertains all the way through".

However, when the album was re-issued in 1998, the band's preferred sequence was used, placing "Side 1" before "Side A" and included five bonus tracks: position In the documentary End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, Johnny Ramone stated that the guitar riff in "The KKK Took My Baby Away" was inspired by the riff in "He's a Whore".