Reception
While reviewing Fake Songs MacKenzie Wilson of the website Allmusic specifically praised "United States of Whatever", describing it as a "sock-puppet favorite" and "an absolute standout that crassly makes fun of American youth in its own self-deprecating kind of way." The review also noted that the British music publication NME named it as a "Single of the Week" in 2002. English disc jockey Steve Lamacq named it "the greatest single of 2002".
The song first attracted commercial popularity when it started appearing on the request charts on Los Angeles radio station KROQ after the song was leaked from a British import of The Sifl and Olly Show. A physical single was eventually released on November 25, 2002. Following its CD single release, the song became a hit, debuting at number ten on the UK Singles Chart on the chart week of December 7, 2002. At 1 minutes and 26 seconds in length, it held the record for the shortest single to enter the UK Singles Chart before the record was beaten by the shorter singles "Spider Pig" by Hans Zimmer and "The Ladies' Bras" by Jonny Trunk and Wisbey, which hit the charts within three weeks of each other in 2007. It debuted at number six on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart on the chart week of June 8, 2003, staying in the top ten of the chart for a total of six weeks. The song also managed to hit the singles charts of Belgium, the Netherlands and New Zealand. The song was later included on Lynch's album Fake Songs (2003).
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)