It's terribly easy to put ["Carly Simon"] on once, decide that it's very pleasant, and then forget it. Unlike [Laura] Nyro, Simon doesn't have any immediately identifiable trademark which gets the ear hooked straight away. What's so good about her, then?… [She] writes songs of an unassuming excellence. Take the opening cut, "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be."… [It's] so honest and unfashionable that it has to be autobiographical, and it's one of the most piquant love songs I've heard in ages…. [There's] enough in the other songs to suggest that Carly Simon will become a major force. She's possessed by that valuable ability to articulate the personal and, in the process, convert it into the universal.

Richard Williams, in his review of "Carly Simon," in Melody Maker (© IPC Business Press Ltd.), May 15, 1971, p. 27.