Urban Chipmunk
Steve Simels of Stereo Review wrote, on its initial release, that "there's something oddly soothing about the furry trio's harmonies; they sound so organic, so natural, to ears lately abused by their spiritual heirs, the Bee Gees.He added"In fact, now that I think about it, this may turn out to be a two-joke act, the second joke being that since these songs are not at all defaced by the ridiculous gimmick of the Chipmunks' electronically speeded-up singing, we may have to come to the grim realization that mainstream country is as bland, plastic, and soulless as any other musical genre that gets played on the radio a lot.[3] Rich Aregood of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that "Alvin, Simon and Theodore have never been in better form than they are on 'Urban Chipmunk', an overdue sendup of the phenomenon that turned outlaws into drugstore cowboys."[4] A critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer had a different reaction to the record, though, saying, "perhaps it's all very cute and fine for the Kiddy set, but why an adult would want to sit around listening to the Chipmunks doing 'Luckenbach, Texas' when they could hear Waylon Jennings' version is a puzzle.Production from the hand of Larry Butler, Janice Karman and Ross Bagdasarian is great [...] just listen to 'The Gambler,' 'I Love a Rainy Night,' 'Thank God Tm a Country Boy,' and 'Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Chipmunks' for fine entertainment.