Pitchfork.com
said: The Shangri-Las perfected pop melodrama, and their best songs feel like a synthesis of Douglas Sirk, Beatlemania, Hells Angels, and a support group for middle-aged manic depressives. Yes, the group addressed the most lurid elements of 1960s suburbia, from rape and death to skull-smashing bikers and abused dropouts. But "Out in the Streets" accomplishes the tremendous feat of transforming teen-beat puppy love and leather-laced fetishism into the foundations of adulthood: nostalgia, boredom, and guilt. Surrounded by siren-like howls and orchestral plinks, the girls rue their own appeal and repent for sanitizing their bad-boy beaus. As a premise, this apology has the benefits of uniting pride and pathos: "He used to act bad/ He used to, but he quit it/ It makes me so sad/ 'Cause I know that he did it for me." The underlying message is that we should hate ourselves as penitence for our beauty, and this song is therefore the finest distillation of the teenage dream ever recorded. --Alex Linhardt