[2] Shortly after its release, the Cure embarked on a major tour of the United Kingdom, culminating in a three-night residency at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

[10] In Smash Hits, Mark Ellen deemed The Top a "weird and wonderful" album with songs that "seem both enticing and faintly dangerous".

[12] In contrast, Barron at Sounds noted that The Top is "too often not the true bottom line in reflected experience to be indisposable", but nevertheless prophesied, "In 20 years' time, when the next generation blush with excitement at the word 'Psychedelic', it'll be regarded as a classic".

[4] On a more skeptical note, NME reviewer Danny Kelly considered it self-indulgent, qualifying it as "an ambitious, difficult record".

[9] Thomas Inskeep of Stylus Magazine wrote that The Top "may well be the nadir of their catalog", concluding he would call it "a transitional album and leave it at that, for what came subsequently was an honest-to-goodness marvel".