Monkey Hips and Rice: The "5" Royales Anthology

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[10]
Robert Christgau	A[11]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[12]
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide	[1]
(The New) Rolling Stone Album Guide	[13]

Robert Christgau wrote that "Lowman Pauling's hard-touring sextet did it all, laughs included, and although Pauling's thought-through songwriting and groundbreaking guitar made him the auteur, singer Johnny Tanner deserves more grafs than he'll ever get in the prehistory of soul."^[11] The Los Angeles Times thought that "there is some less-than immortal novelty fare among the album's 41 songs—such as the forced double-entendre 'Laundromat Blues'—but most are real gems."^[14] The Washington Post noted that Pauling "pioneered the use of single-note, distorted guitar fills and helped fuse gospel and blues into soul."^[15]

AllMusic called the collection "impeccable," writing that the group "take off toward the end of the first disc, stretching through the second disc, with a stretch of invigorating music that is among the greatest R&B ever recorded."^[10] (The New) Rolling Stone Album Guide deemed the compilation's selections "brilliantly chosen," and lamented that it was out of print.^[13] Peter Guralnick labeled it "a stone classic."^[16]