It haunted me.”[4] Recalling his experience of working with Gabriel, Birdy director Alan Parker told Prog magazine in 2010, "We got on so well, he’s such a sweet man.

The commercial performance exemplified Gabriel's strong cult following, according to biographer Daryl Easlea (2018), adding that the chart peaks are "still pretty impressive for what is essentially an album of sound collages.

[1] In a retrospective review, Tom Demalon of AllMusic felt the album was a "successful companion piece" to Parker's film, providing a "moody and evocative" backdrop.

"[11] Colin Larkin described it as a "haunting soundtrack" in The Encyclopedia of Popular Music,[7] whilst in The Great Rock Discography, Martin C. Strong wrote how Gabriel transformed earlier material into "atmospheric mood pieces" with "impressive effect".

He also noted the album's significance, saying: "Many of the techniques explored on Birdy – particularly the experiments with ambient sound on 'Dressing the Wound' and 'Sketchpad with Trumpet and Voice' – would lay the groundwork for So, and both projects certainly shared many of the same personnel.