distribution was heavily limited. The album suffered from lack of promotion, though a radio ad was used for WNEW-FM in New York, and MGM also listed advertisements in publications such as Rolling Stone, Creem, and the Village Voice. Ultimately it failed to chart on the Billboard Top LPs chart, the band's first record to do so. Tucker attributed it to lack of promotion, while Yule noted how the album was ultimately not mainstream. Due to its failure to chart, MGM was not planning on releasing another album from the band. Critical reception Unterberger noted how The Velvet Underground sounded far more commercial than any of the band's previous albums and labeled it as the point where critical reception of the band became more positive. Despite this, however, the album failed to chart, and was less successful than the group's previous two. Reviewing the album for The Village Voice in 1969, Robert Christgau viewed it as the band's best work and found it tuneful, well written, and exceptionally sung, despite "another bummer experiment" in "The Murder Mystery" which he referred to as "some stereo mystery". In his ballot for Jazz & Pop magazine's annual critics poll, Christgau ranked it as the sixth best album of the year. He later included it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). Lester Bangs, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, felt that it is not on-par with White Light/White Heat and has missteps with "The Murder Mystery" and "Pale Blue Eyes", but ultimately said that its combination of powerfully expressive music and profoundly sentimental lyrics will persuade the band's detractors into believing they can "write and play any kind of music they want to with equal brilliance." Paul Williams of Crawdaddy declared that "everybody loves" the band's new release and labeled it his personal favorite since Forever Changes by Love. Bob Stark for Creem observed how it was "as 'far out' as either of the two [previous albums]". Lenny Kaye reviewed the record for Jazz & Pop, labeling it "almost lyrical in its beauty." Other newspapers such as Chicago Seed, Record World, Cashbox, and the more mainstream Variety praised the album, with the latter stating that it is "an important contribution to the lyrical advancement of rock". Adrian Ribolla of Oz, however, lamented that the "Velvet Underground don't really sound together on