Living in the Material World is notable for the uncompromising lyrical content of its songs, reflecting Harrison's struggle for spiritual enlightenment against his status as a superstar, as well as for what many commentators consider to be the finest guitar and vocal performances of his career.

In contrast with All Things Must Pass, Harrison scaled down the production for Material World, using a core group of musicians comprising Nicky Hopkins, Gary Wright, Klaus Voormann and Jim Keltner.

[7][8] Rather than record a follow-up to his acclaimed 1970 triple album, All Things Must Pass, Harrison put his solo career on hold for over a year following the two Concert for Bangladesh shows,[9][10] held at Madison Square Garden, New York, in August 1971.

[11] In an interview with Disc and Music Echo magazine in December that year, pianist Nicky Hopkins spoke of having just attended the New York sessions for John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" single, where Harrison had played them "about two or three hours" worth of new songs, adding: "They were really incredible.

[29][30][nb 2] In August 1972, with the Concert for Bangladesh documentary film having finally been released worldwide, Harrison set off alone for a driving holiday in Europe,[15] during which he chanted the Hare Krishna mantra nonstop for a whole day, he later claimed.

[44][45] Greene writes of Harrison adapting a passage from the Bhagavad Gita into his lyrics for "Living in the Material World" and adds: "Some of the songs distilled spiritual concepts into phrases so elegant they resembled Vedic sutras: short codes that contain volumes of meaning.

[14][52][nb 4] Leng writes of his frame of mind at this time: "while George Harrison was bursting with musical confidence, Living in the Material World found him in roughly the same place that John Lennon was when he wrote 'Help!'

[67][nb 5] The latter initiative was set up in reaction to the tax issues that had hindered his relief effort for the Bangladeshi refugees,[68][70] and ensured a perpetual stream of income, through ongoing publishing royalties, for dispersal to the charities of his choice.

[91] Most of the basic tracks were recorded with Harrison on acoustic guitar; only "Living in the Material World", "Who Can See It" and "That Is All" featured electric rhythm parts, those for the latter two songs adopting the same Leslie-toned sound found on much of the Beatles' Abbey Road (1969).

"Living in the Material World" received significant attention during this last phase of the album production, with sitar, flute and Zakir Hussain's tabla being added to fill the song's two "spiritual sky" sections.

[122][123] The gatefold and lyric insert sleeves for Living in the Material World were much commented-on at the time of release, Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone describing the record as "beautifully-packaged with symbolic hand-print covers and the dedication, 'All Glories to Sri Krsna'",[1] while author Nicholas Schaffner likewise admired the "color representations of the Hindu scriptures",[82] in the form of a painting from a Prabhupada-published edition of the Bhagavad Gita.

[74][124] Reproduced on the lyric insert sheet (on the back of which was a red Om symbol with yellow surround), this painting features Krishna with Arjuna, the legendary archer and warrior, in a chariot, being pulled by the enchanted seven-headed horse Uchchaihshravas.

[121] The gatefold's inner left panel, opposite the album's production credits, showed Harrison and his fellow musicians – Starr, Horn, Voormann, Hopkins, Keltner and Wright – at a long table, laden with food and wine.

[121] Clayson has speculated about the symbolism and hidden messages within the photo: whether the nurse with a pram, set back from and to the left of the table, was a reference to Boyd's inability to conceive a child; and the empty, distant wheelchair in memory of Harrison's late mother.

[129] On the back cover, underneath the second hand-print design, text provides details of the fictitious Jim Keltner Fan Club,[131] information on which was available by sending a "stamped undressed elephant" – for: self-addressed envelope – to a Los Angeles postal address.

[121][131] Due to the extended recording period, Living in the Material World was issued at the end of a busy Apple release schedule, with April and May 1973 having already been set aside for the Beatles compilations 1962–1966 and 1967–1970 and for Paul McCartney & Wings' second album, Red Rose Speedway.

[154] Among expectant music critics, Stephen Holden began his highly favourable[115][155] review in Rolling Stone with the words "At last it's here", before hailing the new Harrison album as a "pop classic" and a "profoundly seductive record".

[158] While describing the pared-down production as "good artistic judgement in view of the nature of the lyrics", Watts concluded: "Harrison has always struck me before as simply a writer of very classy pop songs; now he stands as something more than an entertainer.

"[158] While Holden had opined that, of all the four Beatles, Harrison had inherited "the most precious" legacy – namely, "the spiritual aura that the group accumulated, beginning with the White Album"[1] – other reviewers objected to the overt religiosity of Living in the Material World.

[164] In their 1975 book The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, Tyler and co-author Roy Carr bemoaned Harrison's "didactically imposing said Holy Memoirs upon innocent record-collectors" and declared the album's spiritual theme "almost as offensive in its own way" as Lennon and Yoko Ono's political radicalism on Some Time in New York City (1972).

[82] Although the "transcendent dogma" was not always to his taste, Schaffner recognised that in Living in the Material World, Harrison had "devised a luxuriant rock devotional designed to transform his fans' stereo equipment into a temple".

[170] In the decades following its release, Living in the Material World gained a reputation as "a forgotten blockbuster" – a term used by Simon Leng[22] and echoed by commentators such as Robert Rodriguez[180] and AllMusic's Bruce Eder.

"[174] Writing in Rolling Stone in 2002, Greg Kot found the album "drearily monochromatic" compared to its predecessor,[181] and to PopMatters' Zeth Lundy, it suffers from "a more anonymous tract" next to the "cathedral-grade significance" of All Things Must Pass.

[188] Reviewing the 2014 reissue, Blogcritics' Chaz Lipp writes that "this chart-topping classic is, in terms of production, arguably preferable to its predecessor", adding: "The sinewy 'Sue Me, Sue You Blues,' galloping title track, and soaring 'Don't Let Me Wait Too Long' rank right alongside Harrison's best work.

[196] Eder likewise welcomes Material World's bold idealism, saying: "Even in the summer of 1973, after years of war and strife and disillusionment, some of us were still sort of looking – to borrow a phrase from a Lennon–McCartney song – or hoping to get from them something like 'the word' that would make us free.

And George, God love him, had the temerity to actually oblige ..."[90] While solo works by Lennon, McCartney and Starr had all been remastered as part of repackaging campaigns during the 1990s and early 21st century, Harrison's Living in the Material World was "neglected over the years", author Bruce Spizer wrote in 2005, an "unfortunate" situation considering the quality of its songs.

[178] The CD/DVD edition contained a 40-page full colour booklet[197] that included extra photos from the inner-gatefold shoot (taken by Mal Evans and Barry Feinstein), liner notes by Kevin Howlett, and Harrison's handwritten lyrics and comments on the songs, reproduced from I Me Mine.

[174] While Zeth Lundy found that the deluxe edition "bestows lavish attention upon a record that may not exactly deserve it", with the DVD "an unnecessary bonus",[178] Shawn Perry considered the supplementary disc to be possibly the "pièce de résistance" of the 2006 reissue, and concluded: "this package is a beautiful tribute to the late and great guitarist any Beatles and Harrison fan will cherish.

Physical editions include a 7" single containing a previously unheard rendition of "Sunshine Life for Me (Sail Away Raymond)", featuring members of the Band (Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko) and Ringo Starr.

[212] Uncut's Tom Pinnock similarly praised the remix's brightened orchestral parts, Harrison's "cleaner and sharper" vocals and "the album's peculiar air of dry, ascetic starkness is increased".