Man in the Box" was released as a single in 1991. "Man in the Box" is widely considered to be one of the band's signature songs, even though it only peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart at the time of its release and failed to hit the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1992.[4] The song was number 19 on VH1's VH1 40 Greatest Metal Songs and its solo was rated the 77th greatest guitar solo by Guitar World. It was number 50 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s in 2007.
Professional wrestler Tommy Dreamer used the song as his entrance music from 1995 to 2001 and later in 2010 when he left WWE for TNA Wrestling with a house made soundalike utilized in between. Steve Huey of Allmusic called the song "an often overlooked but important building block in grunge's ascent to dominance" and "a meeting of metal theatrics and introspective hopelessness."[2]