AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine views "Back to the Egg" as "a set of most undistinguished songs" that "have no spark whatsoever", and bemoans "the weak sound of the record and Wings' faceless performances". Among McCartney biographers, Vincent Benitez writes that the songs are "uneven in quality", and Howard Sounes describes the album as "a curate's egg, good in parts, with token attempts at sounding contemporary". Tom Doyle views "the new wave-ish rockers" like "Spin It On" as "too smoothed out to be truly edgy" and the two spoken-word tracks as "weird – and not in a good way". Doyle considers that while "Back to the Egg" has its "moments of inspiration", "There was too much material [recorded during the sessions, and yet not enough of it to gel into a cohesive album."