Goodnight Vienna followed the commercially successful predecessor Ringo, and Starr used many of the same players, including Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, Robbie Robertson, Harry Nilsson, and producer Richard Perry.

[7] Harry Nilsson gave Starr the track "Easy for Me", which he later recorded his own version of for his Duit on Mon Dei album.

The album was released in the US on 18 November,[nb 5][12] and peaked at number 8, ultimately going gold, and its reviews were generally favourable.

[14] A television commercial, which featured a voiceover from Lennon, depicted the album cover's flying saucer (with Starr) over Los Angeles—landing on the roof of the Capitol Records Building in Hollywood.

[2] A lightweight flying saucer and a forty-foot robot named 'Gort' were placed on the building, accompanied by Starr in a spacesuit, and Nilsson sitting in a rocking chair smoking a cigarette in a brown dressing robe, reading that morning's Los Angeles Times, with a front-page photo showing Starr in his space costume.

An orange-clad marching band, and forty actors (who formerly played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz) danced below them at street level.

[7] The album cover for Goodnight Vienna was based on a still from the classic 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still, with Starr's head replacing that of actor Michael Rennie shown standing behind the robot Gort.