Despite receiving generally favorable reviews from the critics, the country-rock style of "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" was such a radical departure from the band's previous sound that large sections of the group's counterculture following were alienated by its contents, resulting in the lowest sales of any Byrds album up to that point. Barry Gifford, in the August 1968 edition of "Rolling Stone" magazine, said of the album: "The new Byrds do not sound like Buck Owens & his Buckaroos. They aren't that good. The material they've chosen to record, or rather, the way they perform the material, is simple, relaxed and folky. It's not pretentious, it's pretty. The musician-ship is excellent." Gifford added that "The Byrds have made an interesting album. It's really very uninvolved and not a difficult record to listen to. It ought to make the 'Easy-Listening' charts. 'Bringing it all back home' has never been an easy thing to do." "Rolling Stone" praised the album in a September 1968 issue, with Jon Landau writing: "The Byrds, in doing country as country, show just how powerful and relevant unadorned country music is to the music of today." Landau added that "they leave just enough rock in the drums to let you know that they can still play rock & roll." In a 1969 article for "The New York Times", Robert Christgau described "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" as "a bittersweet tribute to country music".