The album has appeared in multiple "best albums" lists. In 2003, "Pitchfork" listed "Laughing Stock" as 11th best album of the 1990s. The same year, "Mojo" placed the album on their list of the "Top 50 Eccentric Albums". In 1999, Ned Raggett included the album at number 4 in his list of "The Top 136 or So Albums of the Nineties". In 2014, "Rockdelux" ranked the album at 138 on their list of "The 300 Best Albums of 1984–2014". In 2004, the German version of "Rolling Stone" ranked the album at number 108 in their list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". According to Acclaimed Music, a site which uses statistics to numerically represent reception among critics, the album is the 524th most acclaimed album of all time as of 2018.