number 39 on WHFS's top 100 played songs of 1994, number 41 on KROQ-FM’s top 100 played songs of 1994, number 56 on Q101's top 100 played songs of 1994, and number 82 on 91X's top 100 played songs of 1994. "Dumb" was also ranked at number 381 on Live 105's Top 500 songs in 1994, as well as at number 266 on Live 105's Top 300 Revolutionary songs in 1995, and also at number 220 on WHFS's Top 500 songs of the 90s in 1999. The combined airplay in 1994 allowed the song to chart at number 37 on the US Alternative National Airplay chart which was published by Radio & Records, a sister publication to Billboard. In a 1993 Rolling Stone interview, Cobain told journalist David Fricke that he wished he had put more songs like "Dumb" and "All Apologies" on previous Nirvana albums, saying that Nirvana had so far "failed in showing the lighter, more dynamic side of our band." Critical reception In his review of In Utero for Rolling Stone, Fricke cited "Dumb," along with "Heart-Shaped Box," as evidence that if Generation X "is ever going to have its own Lennon — someone who genuinely believes in rock & roll salvation but doesn't confuse mere catharsis with true deliverance — Cobain is damn near it." Reviewing the album for Kerrang!, Phil Alexander wrote that "Kurt kickstarts Rape Me with a familiar and doubtlessly intended ...Teen Spirit shuffle, while Dumb has an infectious Come As You Are feel. Both ripple with Kurt's poignant observations, allowing fleeting glimpses at his anger and frustration without ever resorting to the trite and obvious." Legacy Reviewing the band's first greatest hits album, Nirvana, in 2002, Will Bryant of Pitchfork wrote that "Dumb" was "one of Cobain's most underrated efforts, a populist revision of "Lithium" that replaces Nevermind's misanthropy with earnest self-deprecation." Bryant praised Kera Schaley's cello playing as the song's "secret weapon," and the bridge as "hands down, Cobain's best." In 2004, "Dumb" was ranked number seven in Q's list of the 10 Greatest Nirvana Songs Ever. In 2011, NME ranked it sixth on their list of the Nirvana's 10 Best Tracks. In 2015, it was listed at number 20 on Rolling Stone's ranking of 102 Nirvana songs. In 2019, The Guardian ranked it ninth on their list of Nirvana's 20 greatest songs. "Dumb" was re-released on the band's second greatest