Stevens announced his upcoming eighth studio album, titled The Ascension, as well as its lead single, "America", on June 30, 2020.

[2] The song was first written in 2014 during the time that Stevens was working on his seventh studio album, Carrie & Lowell.

[5] Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork gave it the publication's Best New Track designation and took note of the song's "characteristically sprawling arsenal—its symphonic slow-build, its sea of recorders, its climactic, singalong chorus".

[6] British GQ's Jonathan Dean praised the song's "intense and building lament that packs in claustrophobia and beauty" and its "end stretch twinkling ambiance".

[7] In her review of The Ascension for NPR, Lindsay Zoladz called "America" "the best and most barbed song [Stevens has] released in the past five years".