After writing a round of new compositions (including the songs already contributed to the 1986 film Shanghai Surprise), Harrison entered his home studio Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames on 5 January 1987 to begin recording his first new commercial album in five years.

[1] Besides Harrison and Lynne, other artists involved in the sessions included Jim Keltner and Ringo Starr on drums, Eric Clapton on guitar, and both Gary Wright and Elton John on piano (the latter was recovering from vocal surgery at the time).

[4] The "Got My Mind Set on You" single and its accompanying video re-introduced Harrison to the mainstream, and the Beatles tribute song "When We Was Fab" was a successful follow-up, reaching the top 25 in both the UK and US.

Writing in Rolling Stone, David Wild described Cloud Nine as "an expertly crafted, endlessly infectious record that constitutes Harrison's best album since 1970s inspired All Things Must Pass".

[15] In The New York Times, Stephen Holden called the release "crucial" to Harrison's career, adding: "A pleasingly tuneful album, its sound is deliberately quaint, as it explicitly evokes the Beatles' more romantic psychedelic music of the late 1960s.

After remarking on Harrison's "stellar" cast of backing musicians, Considine added: "But as much as the playing enlivens the material, as with the dark, bluesy guitar riffs that open the title tune, it's the writing that deserves credit for this album's luster.

He wrote that, with Lynne's help and "the focus on … snappy pop-rock numbers", Harrison "crafted a remarkably consistent and polished comeback effort with Cloud Nine", which Erlewine considered "one of his very best albums".

[19] In his 2002 posthumous appraisal of Harrison's solo career for Goldmine magazine, Dave Thompson described the album as "littered with highlights", calling "This Is Love" "a jewel", and wrote that "When We Was Fab" benefited from Lynne "wringing every last Beatle-esque effect out of his box of sonic tricks".

[12] Writing for Mojo in 2011, John Harris found the production dated, but praised the quality of the songs, including the "splendidly gonzo version" of "Got My Mind Set on You" and the "irresistible" "When We Was Fab", and considered Cloud Nine a "deserved global hit".