"Green Light" was well received by music critics who universally praised the beat, bass, groove, and angry tone used by Beyoncé in the song.

Beyoncé considered the video (which is her second to feature her all-female tour band Suga Mama) her toughest shoot.

[1] Beyoncé contacted American singer-songwriter Sean Garrett, who had worked with her in Destiny's Child and on her 2006 single "Check on It".

[2] The track was co-produced by Beyoncé and The Neptunes, along with "Kitty Kat", and was recorded by Jim Caruana and mixed by Jason Goldstein at the same studio.

[4] There she premiered several songs from the album including "Ring the Alarm" (2006) and "Freakum Dress" (2006), which both were cited as possible second singles, to be released in the United States only.

"[11] According to The London Paper, the "uh-oh-oh-oh-oh" vocals in "Green Light" is an "imitation of Amerie's performance" in her 2005 single "1 Thing".

[12] "Green Light" also displays Latin percussion as well as sampled soul horns,[13] and uses a fairly aggressive tone.

[14] Conforming to Jon Pareles of The New York Times, "Green Light" is a break-up song in which the female protagonist gives her love interest the permission to move out.

[17] Spence D. of IGN music stated, "'Green Light' brings things back down to pseudo earthiness; both with the slightly more organic sounding Neptunes beat.

"[15] Roger Friedman of Fox News Channel considered "Green Light" as his second choice as the song having the greatest potential to become a massive hit after "Irreplaceable" (2006).

[18] Thomas Inskeep of Stylus Magazine gave a mixed review for the song commenting that it's one of the "tired random-percussion tracks [...] that goes nowhere.

[29] On the other hand, the album version of "Green Light" peaked at number twenty on the Dutch Mega Single Top 100 on September 22, 2007.

[32] The clip was inspired mainly by Robert Palmer's 1985 music video "Addicted to Love" with its "stone-faced models pretending to play guitars".

[33] "Green Light" was considered by Beyoncé as a modern version of the video because they used the instruments as props, where she pretended as a rock star.

[38][39] On August 5, 2007, Beyoncé performed the song at the Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, wearing a sparkly silver dress with a long train.

[40] According to Shaheem Reid of MTV News, all the women moved with the precision "of a Navy Seal strike force", slaying the crowd with their synchronized dances.

[40] Jon Pareles of The New York Times praised the performance, stating: "Beyoncé needs no distractions from her singing, which can be airy or brassy, tearful or vicious, rapid-fire with staccato syllables or sustained in curlicued melismas.