Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is the fifth studio album by Irish alternative rock band The Cranberries, and their last before their six-year hiatus. Released on 22 October 2001, the album sold 170,000 copies in the US by April 2007. Worldwide, the album had sold 1,300,000 copies by 2002.
This marks the band's only album on MCA Records. They were transferred to MCA after the merger of PolyGram (which owned their previous label, Island Records) with MCA's parent Universal Music Group in 1999.
While the album did not initially receive a vinyl release, on 16 February 2023, it was announced that the album would receive a limited vinyl issue for Record Store Day on 22 April 2023.
Artwork
Several different covers exist for the album, with the most widely distributed being a man lying in a bed on the beach with gym balls moving towards him. Later European editions, namely the UK special edition, use a similar, brighter shot taken at a different time of day with a slightly different number of gym balls. The American version of the album uses a shot of the clustered gym balls as the main cover art, with the man in bed on the reverse side of the image (the other side of the booklet). The Japanese edition also uses a shot of the gym balls, but bouncing on a grass field instead of the beach.
Designer Storm Thorgerson, who also designed the cover of their previous album, Bury the Hatchet,
The version of the artwork featuring a man in bed on the beach is similar in concept to another Thorgerson creation, Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Thorgerson's anomalous red balls recall another of his earlier album covers, Elegy by The Nice (1970).
Critical reception
At review aggregator Metacritic, the album received a score of 62 out of 100 based on nine critics' reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reception.
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|scope="row"|"7 Years"
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|Wake Up and Smell the Coffee [promo CD]
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Personnel
Personnel taken from Wake Up and Smell the Coffee liner notes.
The Cranberries
- Dolores O'Riordan – vocals, guitar, keyboards
- Noel Hogan – electric & acoustic guitar
- Mike Hogan – bass
- Fergal Lawler – drums, percussion
Production
- Stephen Street – production, mixing
- Cenzo Townsend – engineering
- Emma Jane Lennon – engineering assistance
- Shay Dooher – engineering assistance
- George Marino – mastering
- Tom Stanley – mixing assistance
- Storm Thorgerson – cover design
- Peter Curzon – cover design
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+Weekly chart performance for Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
! scope="col"| Chart (2001)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
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! scope="row"| Australian Albums (ARIA)
| 85
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!scope="row"|Spanish Albums (AFYVE)
| 2
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Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+2001 year-end chart performance for Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
! scope="col"| Chart (2001)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| European Albums (Music & Media)
| 93
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! scope="row"| French Albums (SNEP)
| 38
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! scope="row"| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)
| 73
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{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+2002 year-end chart performance for Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
! scope="col"| Chart (2002)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| French Albums (SNEP)
| 139
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