Is This What You Want? superstar backing musicians, saying, "they're always talkin' about who's on the album and not the album itself." Writing in "ZigZag" in July 1974, Andy Childs advised the magazine's readers: "it's worth its weight in gold, so if it's absent from your collection, add it to your shopping list of second-hand records." Greenfield and Childs both recognised Harrison's "Sour Milk Sea" as a highlight of the album. Richie Unterberger of AllMusic offers a less favourable opinion of "Is This What You Want?", describing Lomax as "a passable but unarresting singer and songwriter". Unterberger identifies the best moments as the "Beatlesque" songs
Is This What You Want? and distinctive voices which have the potential of turning its owner into a superstar". Leng attributes the album's underachievement to the Beatles' inexperience as label owners. He says that they relied too heavily on establishing their artists with a hit single and that, after "Sour Milk Sea" had failed to become a hit, this formula left "Is This What You Want?" without an adequate marketing strategy. The album was issued on CD for the first time in November 1991, with the inclusion of bonus tracks such as "New Day", "Thumbin' a Ride", "How the Web Was Woven" and "Won't You