Since its initial reception, the album's sound has been dubbed as "neo soul". D'Angelo's commercial breakthrough with "Brown Sugar" has been credited by writers and music critics for providing commercial visibility to the emerging neo soul movement of the mid-1990s, as well as inspiration behind the coinage of the term "neo soul". The term was originally coined by Kedar Massenburg to market D'Angelo's music, as well as work by Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell. In a 1996 article for the "Chicago Tribune", critic Greg Kot cited "Brown Sugar" as "arguably where the current soul revival started". "USA Today"s Steve Jones wrote that the album "paved the way for innovative albums by Maxwell, Tony Rich and Eric Benet". Yahoo! Music's Jeff Watson wrote that the album "single-handedly revitalized the creatively-dormant R&B scene". Robert Christgau has dubbed it a "modern wellspring" for neo soul. "Mojo" ranked it number 97 on its "100 Modern Classics" list, and "Rolling Stone" included "Brown Sugar" on its list of "Essential Recordings of the 90's". In 2020, "Rolling Stone" ranked the album at number 183 on their updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.