At the time "I, Assassin" was released, Numan believed it was the best album he had made. Although it was unsurprisingly slated by the majority of the British music press (which had had a strong dislike for Numan and his music ever since his meteoric rise to fame), the album did garner some praise. Numan was given credit for changing his sound by shifting from synth-heavy music to a more bass-led, electro-dance approach . Numan argued that he wanted to shift away from a lot of electronic artists during this period because he felt they were stuck in an interchangeable and simplistic rut that they could never break . Numan wanted to be ahead of the pack and was interested in experimenting with other genres. For the album's cover sleeve, Numan retained the fedora hat from "Dance", with the trench coat and alley background representing "I, Assassin"'s 1930s gangster motif. The album cover of "I, Assassin" was influenced by that of Frank Sinatra's 1954 album "Songs for Young Lovers".