After finishing her run on The All New Mickey Mouse Club, a then fifteen-year-old Aguilera began recording the album with New Jersey–based producers Robert Allecca and Michael Brown.

According to biographer Pier Dominguez, they told her that the demo recordings they would produce would be their property, but also that they would never commercially release the material.

[1] Musically, the album generally consists of dance tracks and ballads, the latter of which were created in an effort to showcase Aguilera's vocal talents.

Pier Dominguez, author of A Star Is Made said: "Christina's songwriting proved to be an early sign of the intense artistic involvement that the singer would have in every single endeavor she decided to embark on during her career.

[1] Carla Christofferson, her lawyer at the time, explained that "We're trying to stop them from releasing these early recordings which is not the quality she is associated with right now.

[4] During the proceedings, Aguilera agreed to let Warlock Records release Just Be Free after reaching a settlement with the company and its affiliates.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic understood why Aguilera was dissatisfied with the release of the material, calling the songs "pre-professional" and "generic early-'90s dance-pop".

[10] Pier Dominguez, author of A Star Is Made, commented that the sessions demonstrated "Christina's raw vocal agility" despite calling the content "dull", adding "Christina's hunger for success actually comes through in these songs, as she sings her heart out with strained emotion, trying to sound as if she's letting all her inhibitions run free.

If she did in fact co-write the songs then they were also a demonstration of Christina's songwriting dexterity, because the album's lyrics could be called unoriginal and perhaps even cheesy, it could not be said that they were not catchy".

Although she recognized Aguilera's potential as a vocalist, she wrote "The songs themselves are terrible, dated club tracks, overwhelmed by poor effects and mundane beats.