In his retrospective review for AllMusic Bruce Eder compared "A New World Record" with ELO's follow-up, the double album "Out of the Blue", and felt that the former album was the better of the two, being "a more modest-sized creation chock full of superb songs that are produced even better... "A New World Record" contains seven of the best songs ever to come out of the group. The Beatles influence is present, to be sure, but developed to a very high degree of sophistication and on Lynne's own terms, rather than being imitative of specific songs."