State of Shock closed a decade in which Nugent took his hard-rocking wildman persona to the top of the charts. Although the album reached the U.S. Top 20 and quickly went gold, it is Nugent's first solo album not to attain platinum certification.[5]
The best known track remains the album opener "Paralyzed", which was performed live on a 1980 episode of the TV show Fridays, and turned up again a year later on Great Gonzos!: The Best of Ted Nugent. Other highlights include "Saddle Sore" and "Alone," a rare "power ballad" for him, sung by Charlie Huhn. A live show originally broadcast as an episode of King Biscuit Flower hour from this era is captured on the 1997 archive release Live at Hammersmith '79. Unlike most King Biscuit live shows that were released on CD in the late 1990s, the show was released by Nugent's record label (Epic/Legacy) rather than by King Biscuit directly.