Featuring a mostly acoustic sound, King of America was a departure from Costello's previous albums, exploring roots rock, country, folk, R&B and Americana.

[1][2] The solo shows were successful, leading Burnett to encourage Costello to record his next studio album with his voice and acoustic guitar as the main instruments, so the music itself would "shine through relatively unadorned".

[6] Acting as a blueprint for the recording of King of America, the sessions yielded a track called "The People's Limousine", written by Costello and Burnett during trips to Italy.

[6][8] The songs were musically straightforward and emphasised emotional honesty, a stylistic departure from Costello's two previous studio albums Punch the Clock (1983) and Goodbye Cruel World (1984).

[10] Costello and Burnett planned session dates and musical lineups, which would be tailored to each song, during the flights on their Coward Brothers tour of Australia and Japan in June 1985.

[1] Songs recorded included "Our Little Angel", "The Big Light", "American Without Tears", "Glitter Gulch" and "Shoes Without Heels"; the group also attempted versions of "Lovable" and "Indoor Fireworks".

"[12] The second set of musicians included the jazz bassist Ray Brown and the New Orleans drummer Earl Palmer, the pianist Tom Canning and the keyboardist Mitchell Froom.

[1] The lineup recorded "Poisoned Rose" and a J.B. Lenoir song called "Eisenhower Blues",[14] which Costello said was only taped to "[give] everyone a chance to relax and play a bit".

[1] At the request of Columbia Records, who failed to hear a single,[19] Costello taped a rendition of the Nina Simone song "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" with the Keltner, Scheff and Froom lineup; Michael Blair of Tom Waits' band overdubbed marimba.

[a] In contrast to the studio-driven production of Costello's previous albums,[25][32] King of America features a mostly acoustic sound emphasised by stand-up bass, Hammond organ, brushes and rim-shots.

[32][38][34] Encompassing descriptions of rejection and isolation ("I'll Wear It Proudly") and confrontation ("Indoor Fireworks"),[29] the songs on King of America are introspective[25][39] and motivated by romance,[40] with themes of alcoholism,[31] betrayal and venality.

[35] The author David Gouldstone notes that the narrators on King of America are "nicer" compared to the ones on records like My Aim Is True (1977), and only three songs are negative ("Indoor Fireworks", "Little Palaces" and "Eisenhower Blues").

[47] Some commentators interpreted its inclusion as a possible restatement of the shedding of the Elvis Costello persona, as in the past, the artist felt misunderstood as a songwriter and performer.

[50] At the time, Mike Gardner of Record Mirror said the track "deftly rakes through the dying embers of a soured but still passionate romance with a pungent aftertaste of defeat and hope".

[55] In it, the narrator describes his obsessive want to be with his lover and pain when she is absent, proclaiming that he would suffer ridicule by wearing the crown of the "king of fools".

[15] The album's poor commercial performance led Costello to write songs more akin to his early work with the Attractions, namely This Year's Model (1978) and Armed Forces.

[32][63] Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that "his passionate vocals have a terse, strangulated intensity",[32] one that Creem's Jeff Nesin believed "give[s] the tracks an amazing presence and immediacy".

[41] Chris Willman of Los Angeles Times enjoyed the collision of the "coldest" lyrics with the "warmest" musical styles combined with the minimalist arrangements, making for an "alternately brilliant and aggravating LP".

[67] Ken Tucker of The Philadelphia Inquirer argued King of America is "not the place to start your Elvis Costello collection" and its enjoyment depends on listeners' familiarity with the artist.

[83] Other reviewers noted King of America as a transitional album,[84] believing Costello was attempting different genres to see if they were successful, although Geoffrey Himes of The Washington Post argued: "If he persists in this new quest for straightforward, well-rooted songs, his best work is ahead of him.

"[34] NME's Sean O'Hagan wrote that after years of musical experiments and different personas, Costello had reached a point in his career where he wanted to be himself and sing with his own voice, concluding: "Maybe that's why the first Declan MacManus album is so straightforward and so complex.

"[53] In The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for the year's best albums, King of America finished at number two, behind Paul Simon's Graceland.

[28] In the decades following its release, the artist continued separating himself from the British punk and pub rock scene of the 1970s in favour of various musical excursions, experimenting with genres such as classical (The Juliet Letters, Il Sogno), lounge jazz (North), country (The Delivery Man) and Brill Building pop (Painted from Memory).

Following Burnett, Costello continued collaborating with other artists, including the Brodsky Quartet, Burt Bacharach, Paul McCartney, Anne Sofie von Otter and the Roots.

[24] The same year, Zeth Lundy of PopMatters wrote: "It is the watershed moment where his lifelong fascination with America took on a larger swath of his artistic palette, an obsession that would continue to inform much of his work throughout the late '80s and '90s.

"[15] Retrospectively, King of America has received praise as one of Costello's finest works,[94] being hailed for the artist's growing maturity,[39][23] its personal tone,[25][29][35] and strong performances.

[87][95][31] AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared it one of Costello's masterpieces, comparing it to his previous country-excursion Almost Blue (1981), writing that it "now sounds lived-in and worn, bringing a new emotional depth to the music".

[96] In PopMatters, Lundy cited the "lifeless production" as King of America's primary flaw, writing that "the instruments and Costello's voice are rendered thin as sacrament wafers" and "the entire mix is doused in a questionable amount of reverb".

[71] In August 1995,[100] the album was reissued by Demon/Rykodisc with five bonus tracks, including the Coward Brothers single, "The People's Limousine" and "They'll Never Take Her Love from Me", and new liner notes written by Costello himself.

Featuring 97 tracks across six discs, the box set contains a 2024 remaster of the original King of America album, previously unreleased demos from the recording sessions, a 1987 live concert and collaborations across Costello's entire career.