Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	87/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Alternative Press	4/5
Entertainment Weekly	A
NME	6/10
Now	5/5
Pitchfork Media	8.4/10
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Spin	8/10
The Village Voice	A−

Mass Romantic is the debut album by Canadian indie rock supergroup The New Pornographers. Produced by David Carswell and band bassist John Collins, it was released on Mint Records on November 28, 2000. The album was three years in the making, with musicians A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar writing songs as early as 1998. With encouragement from peers, they recorded an album with other Canadian musicians from groups including The Evaporators, Zumpano, and Destroyer.

Released in 2000, the album failed to chart in Canada or the United States, but positive reviews from music media led to the group having a sold-out tour. The album was met with very positive reviews, receiving a score of 87 from Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics.

Mass Romantic was recorded over the course of almost three years. The first four songs were finished in early 1998. The New Pornographers claimed that the songs "were just sitting around. Friends would hear the songs and go, 'This is really great,' and so it was kind of frustrating in a way. We'd go, 'Yeah, well, we're going to try to record a record.'" The group's producer and bassist John Collins decided to refer to themselves as a super group. The band consisted of Zumpano's Carl Newman, John Collins of The Evaporators, Dan Bejar of Destroyer, Limblifter's Kurt Dahle, filmmaker Blaine Thurier, and alternative country singer Neko Case.

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Wikipedia