Rob Sheffield, writing in "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide" remarked that McNew "became an essential part of the sound on "Painful", the 1993 album that kept every promise Yo La Tengo ever made and blew their previous highlights away." Critical reaction was quite positive, with reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine calling it "a subtly addicting album." Robert Christgau also praised the group once again, writing in his review that Yo La Tengo is "always friendly. This is not the forbidding experimentation of an aspiring vanguard. This is the fooling around of folks who like to go out on Saturday night and make some noise—and then go home humming it." The band released "Electr-O-Pura" in 1995 to similar acclaim. For the first time, all songs were credited to the band as a whole rather than individual members; this became the norm for all future releases.