The unusual nature of "Revolution 9" engendered a wide range of opinions. Lewisohn summarised the public reaction upon its release as "most listeners loathing it outright, the dedicated fans "trying" to understand it". Music critics Robert Christgau and John Piccarella called it "an anti-masterpiece" and commented that, in effect, "for eight minutes of an album officially titled "The Beatles", there were no Beatles." In their respective reviews of the White Album, Alan Walsh of "Melody Maker" called the track "noisy, boring and meaningless", while the "NME"s Alan Smith derided it as "a pretentious piece of old codswallop ... a piece of idiot immaturity and a blotch on their own unquestioned talent as well as the album". Jann Wenner was more complimentary, writing in "Rolling Stone" that "Revolution 9" was "beautifully organized" and had more political impact than "Revolution 1". Ian MacDonald remarked that "Revolution 9" evoked the era's revolutionary disruptions and their repercussions, and thus was culturally "one of the most significant acts the Beatles ever perpetrated", as well as "the world's most widely distributed avant-garde artifact".