Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(85/100)
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
The A.V. Club	(favorable)
Entertainment Weekly	A
PopMatters
Robert Christgau	C+
Rolling Stone
Time	(favorable)

Tenacious D is the first studio album by American comedy rock band Tenacious D, released on September 25, 2001 by Epic Records. The album's polished production was a departure from the band's acoustic origins, due in part to the production of the Dust Brothers.

"Tribute" was the first single released from the album, followed by "Wonderboy". Both singles had music videos filmed for them, with the Liam Lynch–directed Tribute video achieving cult status. While Tenacious D did not achieve chart success after its release, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America by the end of 2005. Despite only peaking at #38 in the UK, it had sold 426,000 copies countrywide by 2006.

For their first album, they enlisted the help of drummer Dave Grohl, keyboardist Page McConnell of Phish, guitarist Warren Fitzgerald, and bass player Steven Shane McDonald. The Dust Brothers produced the album. The majority of the songs on their debut album stem from early versions as seen on their HBO TV series, Tenacious D. The record itself does not list the song titles on the back cover as is the convention but instead on the back cover of the jacket; therefore one must open the CD (after presumably buying it) to read them. This is perhaps to allow songs with expletives or words otherwise deemed offensive to escape censorship or omission.

The recording session for the album began with a two-day session at Neil Diamond's ArcAngel studio in Los Angeles where initial drum tracks were recorded. They were able to use the studio because Diamond had just appeared with Black in the film Saving Silverman, in which Black plays a Neil Diamond cover singer. "Diamond claims it was the Liberty Records studio," King says. "It's a really old place." At least one song was cut from the final release of the album. A studio recording of "Jesus Ranch," the final song from the HBO shorts (the closing credits feature the end of "The Road"), was omitted from the album because "it just didn't cut the mustard" (quoted by the D in the FAQ section of their website). The HBO version can be found on their DVD, The Complete Masterworks, and a recorded studio demo can be found on their 2002 EP, D Fun Pak.

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