freedom on the pro-choice anthem "Reclamation" and "KYEO" ("keep your eyes open") was dedicated by MacKaye to Rodney King during the 'Steady Diet' tour. Release Six months before the release, Dischord had pre-orders of over 160,000 for the album. In August 1993, more than two years after the album's release, MacKaye told Billboard magazine that Steady Diet of Nothing had sold 215,000 units. Both MacKaye and Picciotto would later attribute the album's relatively-mild response to the alternative rock boom heralded by the release of Nirvana's Nevermind two months after Steady Diet. According to Picciotto (who was on tour with the band in Australia at the time): “It was like our record could have been a hobo pissing in the forest for the amount of impact it had, [...] Nevermind was so huge, and people were so fucking blown away. We were just like, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ It was so crazy. On one hand, the shows were bigger, but on the other hand, it felt like we were playing ukuleles all of a sudden because of the disparity of the impact of what they did.” Despite this, Steady Diet of Nothing was the band's first album to chart in the UK, where it peaked at #63. Critical reception Steady Diet of Nothing received mostly positive reviews upon release. Steve Park of The Boston Phoenix wrote that the band pulled off "a double triumph by mixing music and politics without diluting the entertainment and adrenaline." He noted, however, that the album failed to capture the "immediate intensity" of their live performances. Andy Kellman wrote that while the album was "not nearly as neck-gnawing as Repeater, Steady Diet still packs a sizable wallop, but with slower tempos and less deliberate instrumentation." He took issue, however, with the vagueness of the lyrics which "border[s] on equivocality at times -- which has its advantages and disadvantages." A mixed review came from Robert Christgau, who simply awarded the album a "Neither" score, indicating a release that "may impress once or twice with consistent craft or an arresting track or two. Then it won't." Legacy Lost At Sea ranked it the 84th greatest album of the nineties. Gavin Rossdale of Bush included Steady Diet among the 10 albums that changed his life. Both Suuns and Buke and Gase covered the track "Long Division" live. The 2021 Fugazi tribute album Silence Is a Dangerous