At the time of the release of Against the Grain, Phoebe Snow called it her "rockiest" album, "a deliberate turning away from the jazz influences" of her earlier recordings.[4] Peter Reilly of Stereo Review recognized the album's intent to "mark [Snow's] entrance into Outright Rock-&-Roll", dismissing it as "merely a paraphrase of real rock" and lamenting that "a singer who...has shown a real flair for projecting a lyric with poignancy and feeling has made such an awkward and clumsy turnabout."[5]
Rising no higher than #100 on the Billboard 200, Against the Grain became Snow's second album to seriously under-perform, ending her association with Columbia Records. Snow would have one album release in the next ten years, which was Rock Away, touted as her move into "rock-&-roll".[6][7][8] In interviews concurrent with the 1981 release of Rock Away, Snow would label Against the Grain a "disaster":[9] "[it] tried to be a rock album but had too many opinions. Everybody who played, sang or cleaned up the studio produced that album...Putting [Paul McCartney's "Every Night"]" - which afforded Snow a hit in the UK and Australia - "was the one idea of mine that filtered through."[10]
In a retrospective review for Allmusic, critic William Ruhlmann wrote of the album "The decision to add Barry Beckett as co-producer with Phil Ramone helped add an R&B depth and fervor, but 'Against the Grain' was just a more impassioned effort than its predecessor."[1]Robert Christgau wrote of the album; "this time she dies on the non-originals...Paul McCartney's Every Night' shows up the hooklessness of almost everything else."[2]
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