Although the poor sound quality limits its commercial appeal, the album provides historic insight into the group's club act in the period after Ringo Starr joined but before the emergence of Beatlemania.

The Beatles were unsuccessful in legally blocking the initial release of the album; the recordings were reissued in many forms until 1998, when the group were awarded full rights to the performances.

The Beatles were reluctant to return for their final two-week booking, which started 18 December, as they were gaining popularity in Britain and had just achieved their first charted single with "Love Me Do".

[3] Portions of The Beatles' final Star-Club performances (along with other acts) were recorded by the club's stage manager, Adrian Barber, for Ted "Kingsize" Taylor.

For example, "Mr. Moonlight" has a much quicker tempo, a guitar-based instrumental break, and an intentionally altered lyric with Lennon proclaiming he is on his "nose" instead of his "knees"; "Roll Over Beethoven" was described as "never taken at a more breakneck pace".

In 1972, Williams, Taylor, and the engineer gained access to the abandoned office and recovered the tapes "from beneath a pile of rubble on the floor.

[15] He sold the worldwide distribution rights to Double H Licensing, which spent more than $100,000 on elaborate audio processing and mixing of the songs under the direction of Larry Grossberg.

[21] The release of the recordings on two CDs by industry giant Sony Music in 1991 sparked renewed legal attention by The Beatles (as represented by Paul McCartney, Harrison, Starr, and Yoko Ono).

"[23] In 2022, film director Peter Jackson speculated that the technology used to enhance the audio of the Beatles' Let It Be sessions for his documentary Get Back could also be used to increase the quality of the Star-Club tapes.

[30] Assessments of the album often weigh the poor sound quality against the historic importance and insight provided into The Beatles' early stage act.

Rolling Stone reviewer John Swenson called the album "poorly recorded but fascinating" and commented that it showed The Beatles as "raw but extremely powerful.

"[31] Allmusic, commenting on a reissue, wrote: "The results were very low-fidelity, and despite The Beatles' enormous success, it took Taylor fifteen years to find someone greedy and shameless enough to release them as a record".

[32] Q magazine described the recordings as having "certain historical interest" and remarked: "The show seems like a riot but the sound itself is terrible – like one hell of a great party going on next door.