Although "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" received some highly favourable reviews, critical reception to the album was mixed overall. Andy Gray of the "NME" said it offered truths that would resonate with most listeners but that Lennon was governed by "a great big chip on his shoulder about class consciousness and the unfairness of the world". Gray also wrote: "I have rarely heard so much anguish and suffering put into a track as in the first song, 'Mother'." "The Guardian"s Geoffrey Cannon opined that Lennon had taken the self-centredness of "McCartney" to an obsessive level. He predicted that the songs would have limited interest but added: "Lennon's album makes a deep impression, if more on him than us. He screams and cries, desolation, bitterness, anguish. This is the album of a man of black bile. This is declamation, not music." Writing in "The Times", Richard Williams described "Plastic Ono Band" as "almost unbearably stark" and "not an album I can put on for pleasure".