The album was a turn of direction of sorts, with most of the songs stepping back from their progressive rock sound, employing synthesised dance beats and rhythms.

Chief songwriter Rick Davies later recalled, "Free as a Bird was an experiment to try and be modern and build it up with computers and drum machines and have people come in one by one, which makes you lose the band spirit a little bit.

Originally, the vinyl album featured four color variants – blue (pictured), green, yellow and pink.

[7] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine brief retrospective review dismissed Free as a Bird as "a colorless and tuneless collection of prog rock meandering".

The reissue was supervised by Bill Levenson with art direction by Vartan and design by Mike Diehl, with production coordination by Beth Stempel.