[7] "Turning the Town Red" originates from the Goodbye Cruel World (1984) era and was written as the theme song to the short-lived TV series Scully.

Record Collector named it their "Album of the Month" for January 1988, describing the material as "alternately brilliant and bizarre, enlightening and annoying – prime Costello, in other words.

[11] Writing for NME, Jonathan Romney gave the album a rating of 8/10, praising what he found to be Costello's "Midas-like way of making everything he touches absolutely and unmistakably his own.

"[13] While he criticized "Seven Day Weekend" as "ham-fisted", he praised "Get Yourself Another Fool" as proving Costello to be a "ballad singer of genius" and describing him an "enthusiast" for his rendition of Richard and Linda Thompson's "Withered and Died".

[1] He praised the album for its "freewheeling, goofy humor" and stating he found the material to be "frequently excellent, whether it's covers (Yoko Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice", Smokey Robinson's "From Head to Toe", "So Young"), genre exercises, jokes, or full-fledged songs."