 Describing the mix of musical styles present on # 1 Record , Rolling Stone 's Bud Scoppa notes that the album includes " reflective and acoustic " numbers , saying that " even the prettiest tunes have tension and subtle energy to them , and the rockers reverberate with power " . Scoppa finds that in each mode , " the guitar sound is sharp @-@ edged and full " . # 1 Record was released in June 1972 , and quickly received strong reviews . Billboard went as far as to say , " Every cut could be a single " . Rolling Stone judged the album " exceptionally good " , while Cashbox stated , " This album is one of those red @-@ letter days when everything falls together as a total sound " , and called it " an important record that should go to the top with proper handling " . Proper handling , however , was not forthcoming : Stax Records proved unable to either promote or distribute the record with any degree of success , and even when the band 's own efforts to get airplay generated interest , fans were unable to buy it as Stax could not make it available in many stores . Stax , in an effort to improve its catalog 's availability , signed a deal with Columbia Records , already successful distributors in the US , making Columbia responsible for the entire Stax catalog . But Columbia had no interest in dealing with the independent distributors previously used by Stax and removed even the existing copies of # 1 Record from the stores . 
