The Lonesome Death of Buck McCoy is an album by American rock band The Minus 5. Their final release of new material for Hollywood Records, it was released in 1997. The album was met with positive reception from critics.
Recording and release
The musicians making up The Minus 5 overlapped with the auxiliary touring members of R.E.M. and Tuatara; the musicians recorded The Lonesome Death of Buck McCoy alongside Mark Eitzel's West.[2] The opportunity to record and tour with the material spurred Scott McCaughey to finish off songs that Peter Buck had started writing two years prior.[3] The revolving door of performers supported all their releases (including Tuatara's Breaking the Ethers)[4] with The Magnificent Seven Vs. the United States tour in 1997.[5] This album was the first release from Hollywood Records imprint Malt Records.[6]
The album has received positive reviews from critics, with Album of the Year characterizing consensus as a 90 out of 100, based on two reviews.[8] The editorial staff of AllMusic Guide gave the album four out of five stars, with reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing that it was an improvement over their first full-length, Old Liquidator, with catchy songwriting and "charmingly ragged pop-rock".[1] The review in No Depression concurred with the charming nature of the songwriting, tying it stylistically to 1960s pop music and concluding that McCaughey's first major label album is deserved.[9] In Entertainment Weekly, Steven Mirkin compared the sound to Merseybeat acts and gave the album an A for "casually perfect crystalline pop".[7]
Commercial performance
The album reached 58 on CMJ New Music Monthly's Alternative Radio Airplay in August 1997.[10] In 2003, McCaughey claimed in an interview that the album had only sold 5,000 copies, compared to the greater commercial success of some of the musicians who played on the album.[11]
