With its deliberately below-par sound quality and performances, reviews of Like Flies on Sherbert differ as to whether the effect is positive or merely substandard. Allmusic's David Cleary noted that "sound quality is terrible, instrumental balances are careless and haphazard, and some selections even begin with recording start-up sound." and described the album as "universally slipshod and boorish...sloppy and lackluster."

Another Allmusic critic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...

, claimed the album was "a front-runner for the worst album ever made."

However, Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

's Ken Tucker described the album as "a small masterpiece of crudity and split-second invention", adding that "Chilton achieves his most startling, moving effects at precisely those moments when he seems least in control." Critic Robert Christgau

Robert Christgau

Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...

 was also positive towards the album, giving it a "B" rating and stating that "this long-time advertisement for self-abuse doesn't prove craziness is universal. Just makes you forget that things most certainly wouldn't be more fun if it was."

It also received positive reviews in Sounds

Sounds (magazine)

Sounds was a long-term British music paper, published weekly from 10 October 1970 – 6 April 1991. It was produced by Spotlight Publications , which was set up by Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left "Melody Maker" to start their own company...

 and was a featured release in Creem

Creem

Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...

.

LP

1. "Boogie Shoes
   Boogie Shoes
   "Boogie Shoes" is a popular song released in 1975 on the self-titled album KC and the Sunshine Band by the disco group KC and the Sunshine Band. The song became a hit when it appeared on the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack in 1977. The song is still heard on radio stations today as a disco-era staple...
   
   " (Harry Wayne Casey
   Harry Wayne Casey
   Harry Wayne "K.C." Casey is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and producer. He is most famous for his group, KC and the Sunshine Band, and as a producer of several hits for other artists.-Early years:...
   
   , Richard Finch
   Richard Finch (musician)
   Richard Finch , is an American composer, producer, engineer, and song arranger. He is best known as the co-founder, producer and former bass player of KC and the Sunshine Band...
   
   ) - 2:29
2. "My Rival" (Alex Chilton
   Alex Chilton
   William Alexander "Alex" Chilton was an American songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer, best known as the lead singer of the Box Tops and Big Star...
   
   ) - 3:27
3. "Hey! Little Child" (Chilton) - 3:43
4. "Hook or Crook" (Chilton) - 2:25
5. "I've Had It" (Ray Ceroni, Carl Bonura) - 2:23
6. "Rock Hard" (Chilton) - 2:42
7. "Girl After Girl" (Gary Shelton
   Troy Shondell
   Troy Shondell is an American vocalist, who achieved a modicum of fame and recognition in the early 1960s. He became a transatlantic one-hit wonder, by releasing a single that made the record charts in both the US and the UK...
   
   ) - 2:28
8. "Waltz Across Texas" (Ernest Tubb
   Ernest Tubb
   Ernest Dale Tubb , nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" , marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music...
   
   ) - 4:46
9. "Alligator Man" (Floyd Chance, Jimmy C. Newman
   Jimmy C. Newman
   Jimmy Yves Newman , better known as Jimmy C. Newman , is an American singer and a long time star of the Grand Ole Opry.-Biography:Newman was born near Big Mamou, Louisiana...
   
   ) - 2:40
10. "Like Flies on Sherbert" (Chilton) - 2:08

CD re-release

1. "Baron of Love" (Ross Johnson) - 4:11
2. "Girl After Girl"
3. "My Rival"
4. "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena" (A. P. Carter
   A. P. Carter
   Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter , best known as A.P. Carter, was an American musician and founding member of The Carter Family, one of the most notable acts in the history of country music.-Life:...
   
   ) - 4:35
5. "I've Had It"
6. "Rock Hard"
7. "Waltz Across Texas"
8. "Alligator Man"
9. "Hey! Little Child"
10. "Hook or Crook"
11. "Like Flies on Sherbert"
12. "Boogie Shoes"
13. "Baby Doll" (Chilton) - 2:51
14. "She's the One That's Got It" (Allen Page) - 1:54
15. "Stranded on a Dateless Night" (Cordell Jackson
    Cordell Jackson
    Cordell Jackson was an American guitarist thought to be the first woman to produce, engineer, arrange and promote music on her own rock and roll music label...
    
    ) - 2:33

Personnel

• Alex Chilton
  Alex Chilton
  William Alexander "Alex" Chilton was an American songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer, best known as the lead singer of the Box Tops and Big Star...
  
   - guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , piano
  Piano
  The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
  
  
• Mike Ladd - guitar, drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Lee Baker - guitar
• Jim Lancaster - bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Jim Dickinson
  Jim Dickinson
  James Luther "Jim" Dickinson was an American record producer, pianist, and singer who fronted, among others, the Memphis based band, Mudboy & The Neutrons.- Biography :...
  
   - piano, keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  , guitar
• Ross Johnson - drums, vocals
• Richard Rosebrough - drums
• Lesa Aldridge - backing vocals
• Sid Selvidge - backing vocals

• Engineered and mixed by Alex Chilton, Richard Rosebrough and John Hampton
• Mastering - Larry Nix
• Photography - William Eggleston
  William Eggleston
  William Eggleston , is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium to display in art galleries—which, until the 1970s, often tended to privilege work by photographers making black-and-white prints.- Early years...
  
  
• Titleing - Gustavo Falco
• Recorded at Sam Phillips
  Sam Phillips
  Samuel Cornelius Phillips , better known as Sam Phillips, was an American businessman, record executive, record producer and DJ who played an important role in the emergence of rock and roll as the major form of popular music in the 1950s...
  
   Studios and Ardent Studios
  Ardent Studios
  Ardent Studios is a recording studio located in Memphis, Tennessee. Ardent Records/Ardent Music is the in-house label.- History :Ardent Studios was founded by John Fry and was initially a studio in his family's garage, where he recorded his first Ardent Records 45's. In 1966 the operation moved...