Writer David Sheppard described the music of "Station to Station" as "glacial, synthesized funk-rock." AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that, "at its heart, "Station to Station" is an avant-garde art-rock album", which includes "everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop" while extending "the detached plastic soul of "Young Americans" to an elegant, robotic extreme." According to Robert Christgau, Bowie's experimentation with African-American music styles had matured by the time "Station to Station" was recorded, as the record appropriated them "in a decidedly spacy and abrasive context"; he said it added soul to the "mechanical, fragmented, rather secondhand elegance" explored on "Aladdin Sane". "Pitchfork"s Laura Snapes described the record's sound as "a hybrid of electronic R&B," while Erlewine considered it "eerie avant-pop." In 2016, Michael Gallucci of "Ultimate Classic Rock" characterised the tracks as "art-funk".