Following the release of his country covers album Almost Blue (1981), the artist was facing diminishing popularity, particularly in America, where Trust (1981) and the Taking Liberties (1980) collection of outtakes had only reached the top 30;[1] Armed Forces (1979) and Get Happy!!

[4][6] Nieve arranged the majority of the string sections, including three Wagnerian-like French horns for "The Long Honeymoon", brass and woodwinds for "Pidgin English", "Philly-style violin" for "Town Cryer" and a full 40-piece orchestra for "...And in Every Home".

[4] Reviewing the newer numbers during the New Year's Eve show, Robert Palmer of The New York Times commented: "Some of them have the harmonic and melodic sophistication of pop standards from the 1930s and 1940s.

[4] Costello continued tinkering with the Imperial Bedroom recordings alone throughout early 1982, including experimenting with vocal inflections on "Kid About It", "Human Hands" and "Pidgin English".

[5] He also overdubbed "vocal groups" onto "Tears Before Bedtime", "The Loved Ones" and "Town Cryer" as a way to contrast with the more straightforward approaches in "Almost Blue", "Man Out of Time" and "The Long Honeymoon".

[5] A departure from the artist's previous albums,[14] Imperial Bedroom employs a variety of musical styles, characterised by commentators as new wave,[15][16] baroque pop,[17][18][19] and art rock.

[12] The lyrics on Imperial Bedroom are also a departure from previous albums, wherein every song is primarily concerned with topics of love and relationships, and delve further into the psych of dealing with emotions rather than the "revenge and guilt" fantasies of Costello's early work.

[7] AllMusic's Bill Janovitz viewed the track's use of vocal layering, effects and instrumentation as resembling and predating techniques of sampling and looping before their widespread use in rock.

[7][30] AllMusic's Rick Anderson opined that the song presents both the "best" and "worst" of the album, but found its "lush and heartbreakingly pretty" production lends the chorus its emotional weight.

[12] "Boy With a Problem" mixes midcentury torch with contemporary rock and connects prominent lyrical ideals throughout the record, including alcoholism, domestic violence, impotence, relationship dysfunction and lack of self-esteem.

[37] In an example of Imperial Bedroom's focus on breaking free from the static of daily life, the song offers an expansion on the themes of "Human Hands", with Perone stating that it displays "numerous images of people's inability to articulate their emotions in a stream-of-consciousness style and contrasts the resulting confusion with the oft-repeated fade-out phrase "P.S.

[5] "You Little Fool" is a more straightforward number akin to mid-1960s pop equipped with a harpsichord;[7][12][38] the author Mick St. Michael viewed it as "one step" from the Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper" (1966).

[1] In a lyric mirroring Trust's "Big Sister's Clothes", a teenage girl is ready to grow up to adulthood while her parents do not understand her nor approve of her love life.

[7][12] The final track, "Town Cryer", is a soft soul ballad that uses Nieve's orchestral arrangements to the fullest extent; by the song's extended coda, the orchestra overtakes the rest of the band.

[12][39] Costello utilises heavy wordplay to portray a man who has lost at love and has reached his breaking point: he dubs himself a "town crier" and is anxious to make his tears public.

[7] The cover artwork, a painting titled Snakecharmer & Reclining Octopus by Barney Bubbles (credited to "Sal Forlenza"), is a pastiche of Pablo Picasso's Three Musicians (1921).

[d][11][32] The painting depicts a resting woman with laced hands surrounded by zipper-like creatures—which spell out "Pablo Si"—sitting next to ringmaster-type figure, wearing what Costello interpreted as a tricorn hat.

[7] The lyrics appear in a continuous flow, without punctuation nor breaks between songs, and in all caps,[17][10] which was done by Bubbles at Costello's instruction as he wanted the final result to be a graphic effect rather than, in his words, "stressing any order or hierarchy on the page".

[i] Record Review's David M. Gotz argued that the artist lacked youth appeal, but his work nonetheless "continues to be a stimulating experience for those who have enough time and sense to listen.

[15][65] While some argued it made Imperial Bedroom an album that would enjoy repeated listens,[26][34][38] others felt its concentration on complexity resulted in a "pretentious" and non-"easy-listening" final product that softened the impact of the songs.

[68] Imperial Bedroom made appearances on several lists of the year's best albums, including number one placements by Record Mirror and The Village Voice on its annual Pazz & Jop critics poll.

[4] The singer boasted more friendly on-stage demeanor compared to previous tours,[11] including a stunt where he appeared in a full gorilla suit during the encore of the show coinciding with his 28th birthday.

[4] By 1982, Costello had garnered a loyal fanbase, largely through his own merits, but knew his heavily artistic and challenging material was doing him more harm than good, so he decided to change direction with his next record.

[12][31][21] Commentators agreed the record was Costello's showcase as a songwriter,[35][83] standing as the Bob Dylan or Van Morrison of the new wave era,[31] and earning him the respect of musicians and critics who disregarded him as a punk rocker.

[24] In his book Let Them All Talk, Hinton proclaims Imperial Bedroom as "an album of astonishing vitality and musical optimism" that "remains perhaps his most perfect achievement", occupying "an aural richness" that would return on 1996's All This Useless Beauty.

[11] Reviewing Costello's entire career, Klinger argued that its musical styles predated the artist's collaborations with Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint and the Brodsky Quartet.

[8][74] Mojo's Mat Snow gave particular praise to Bruce Thomas's basslines and compared them to that of Paul McCartney, calling his work "models of dramatic invention".

[85] Others, including Treblezine's Tyler Parks, have found it "pretentious" and "obsessed with its own virtuosity",[30] while Jason Mendelsohn of PopMatters believed its lush set pieces were the record's greatest strength and weakness, becoming so "overwrought" it makes you yearn for the artist's simpler works.

Staff writer Huw Jones stated that the album "affirms Costello as a poet laureate for the counterculture and a restless musical genius all in the space of 50 topsy-turvy minutes".

[21] Imperial Bedroom was again reissued by Rhino Records on 19 November 2002 as a two-disc set with additional bonus tracks, including material from the initial two-week rehearsals preceding the sessions.