– and reaches the sought level of terror. Yeah, and then the mood is broken by dumb lyrics". Music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a C+ rating, stating "there are little problems like lyrics that reduce serious politics to rhetoric, singing that makes rhetoric sound lurid, and the way the manic eccentricity of this duo's live performance turns to silliness on record" Rolling Stone also gave Suicide a negative review, referring to the album as "absolutely puerile" and Alan Vega's vocals as "nothing but arrogance and wholesale insensibility". Rolling Stone placed Suicide at number 441 on its 2012 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and at number 498 on an update of the list in 2020. Online music magazine Pitchfork placed the album at number 39 on its list of best albums of the 1970s. The album is listed in the reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In her review of Suicide for AllMusic, critic Heather Phares wrote, "Proof that punk was more about attitude than a raw, guitar-driven sound, Suicide's self-titled debut set the duo apart from the rest of the style's self-proclaimed outsiders." Spins Joe Gross described the album as "beyond classic" and found that "no one has ever come close to replicating its monolithic vibe." Aftermath, influence and legacy The album was influential in the development of many musical genres, including post-punk, synth-pop and industrial rock. Tony Fletcher wrote in All Hopped Up and Ready to Go: Music from the Streets of New York 1927–77 that it would "in its own way", become as influential as other acclaimed punk albums such as Horses, Ramones and Marquee Moon. In 2017, Henry Rollins, singer for Black Flag and Rollins Band, described "Frankie Teardrop" as "the single most intense song I've ever heard in my life". Songs from the album have been featured in various forms of media since the album's initial release. Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder contacted Red Star to get the rights for "Frankie Teardrop" for his film In a Year of 13 Moons. The song is featured during a party scene. "Cheree" was used by director Edo Bertoglio for his film Downtown 81, a film shot in the early 1980s but not completed until 1999. Several music artists and groups have covered songs from Suicide. Fellow New Yorkers the Fleshtones recorded a cover of "Rocket U.S.A." for their debut