the situation, Nick Drake is likely to remain in the shadows, the private troubadour of those who have been fortunate enough to catch an earful of his exquisite 3am introversions". Reviewing the album in the October 1972 issue of Creem, Colman Andrews described the songs as "not awfully good" and "weak", and that the music was "a triumph of style over sententiousness, of sound over sense" with "a lulling repetitiousness to a lot of what he sings", but that this was the point: "he knows precisely what emotional limits to impose upon his self-accompaniment. It's seductive music." By the time of the album's reissues on compact disc in the 1990s and 2000s, Drake's fame and critical standing had improved considerably, and legacy reviews of the album were overwhelmingly favourable. Martin Aston of Q noted in 1990 that "the mood is even more remote [than Drake's first two albums] with – finally – a defeated strain in both throat and words, but several of his most elegant melodies". John Harris's review of the 2000 reissue in the same magazine was more positive still, claiming that "many hold up Pink Moon as Nick Drake's best album" and saying, "The motivation of success had evaporated and Drake made a record so singular and uncompromising that, superficially, it beggars belief ... The truth is that Pink Moons excellence shines through, irrespective of the endless speculation [regarding Drake's state of mind during the making of the record and subsequent death]. Few records have ever sounded so intimate, or embodied the eternal human ailment known as Melancholy with such grace and assurance." In Mojo Rob Chapman claimed that "Pink Moon is his masterpiece and the Robert Johnson comparisons are fully deserved". Critic and author Ian MacDonald, a contemporary of Drake's at Cambridge University, stated in Uncut that "what remains clear is that this is one of the premium singer-songwriter albums, nearly every one of its 11 tracks a timeless classic". Rolling Stones Anthony DeCurtis observed that "by the time of these sessions, Drake had retreated so deeply into his own internal world that it is difficult to say what the songs are 'about'. His lyrics are so compressed as to be kind of folkloric haikus, almost childishly simple in their structure and elemental in their imagery. His voice conveys, in its moans and breathy whispers, an alluring sensuality, but he sings as if he were viewing