Kaleidoscope Heart received a 67% on Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, resulting from generally favorable reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...

 from Allmusic rated the album with 4 stars out of 5 and has claimed positively that "Despite lushly detailed arrangements, Bareilles never pushes this distinctly commercial gift too hard, letting the songs flow easily and this gentleness is almost as appealing as those classically constructed melodies, tunes so softly insistent they could conceivably appear on adult contemporary charts anytime from 1971 to 2010". Jon Pareles from The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

was also positive regarding the album, saying that "When Ms. Bareilles goes for more straightforward tugs on the heartstrings, she often sounds like Sarah McLachlan

Sarah McLachlan

Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...

's gifted apprentice, complete with Ms. McLachlan's trademark of going breathy at the top of a phrase". Ann Powers from Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

claimed that "The singer-songwriter's background in university show choirs serves her well here, as she finds strength in complex vocal arrangements and the sorts of dramatic set-ups that have reminded us, through Fox

Fox

Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...

's popular television show, that the very act of raising our voices can be a hugely liberating act". Mikael Wood from Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

was favorable, saying that "On Kaleidoscope Heart, sometimes, as in the airless Breathe Again, all that earnest yearning can make you feel like you've been sentenced to life at Lilith Fair". Will Hermes from Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

gave a rating of 2.5 stars (out of 5) and a mixed review, analysing that "Bareilles veers between fellow pianists Alicia Keys

Alicia Keys

Alicia Augello Cook , better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano...

 and Regina Spektor

Regina Spektor

Regina Ilyinichna Spektor is a Russian American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered in New York City's East Village.-Early life:...

, avoiding either's extremes". Another mixed review, came from Enio Chiola from Pop Matters, who claimed that "Although Kaleidoscope Heart was probably intended to prove Bareilles' staying power, it only confirms suspicions that in some years, she'll be as remembered as Michelle Branch

Michelle Branch

Michelle Jacquet DeSevren Branch is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and actress. During the early 2000s, she released two top-selling albums, The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper, and was subsequently nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2003...

, or Tracy Bonham

Tracy Bonham

Tracy Bonham is an American alternative rock musician best known for her 1996 single "Mother Mother".Raised in Eugene, Oregon, Bonham is a classically-trained violinist and pianist...

, still making music, but without any of the mass appeal they once enjoyed".

Commercial performance

On the Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

, Bareilles scored her first number-one album and her best sales week ever. "Kaleidoscope Heart" topped the chart with 90,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan

Nielsen SoundScan

Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...

.
To date, it has sold over 340,000 copies in the U.S according to nielson soundscan.

Track listing

Charts

Chart (2010)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	1
U.S. Billboard Digital Albums Billboard Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...	1
U.S. Billboard Tastemaker Albums Billboard Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...	10
Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...	13
UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...	138
Swiss Albums Chart	97

Year-end charts

Chart (2010)	Position
US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	175

Chart precession and succession