[3] Bass player Lawrence Donegan reflected in 2004 that "with the previous LP, Easy Pieces, we had tried to broaden out and make more of a pop record and it hadn't really worked.

Keyboardist Blair Cowan had already left the group by the time the album came out (hence his picture is missing from the photographs of the band that feature on the artwork, and only included on a 'dedication' to him on the inner sleeve) and Donegan was also close to calling it a day, having been accepted on a journalism course.

As a result the group decided that they had come to a natural end and to split up after the release of the album, but were obliged to promote it and undertake a tour first, which took a year.

[5] After the Commotions broke up, Cole moved to New York to resume his songwriting partnership with Cowan and joined up with Fred Maher and Robert Quine, both former associates of Lou Reed, to begin work on a solo career.

I took most of the scenarios from that song from Big Lights, Bright City [sic] or things that I'd heard like some executive that we've dealt with getting a phone call from another part of the office saying, 'Come upstairs, it's snowing' which of course meant a whole load of new coke was in.

[14][15] The song opens with dialogue featuring the voices of Scottish actors Robbie Coltrane and Katy Murphy, taken from the BBC television comedy-drama series Tutti Frutti which had been broadcast seven months before the release of Mainstream.

[9] RS Murthi of New Straits Times writes that Cole's "rough-hewn vocals...provide a fine contrast to the smooth and buoyant music" and it "bristles with chiming guitars and dulcet synthesizer textures".

Mainstream beats most contemporary rock for its wit, intelligence and use of stringed instruments, and it thrashes crateloads of pop on the tunes, production and fun level.

You yearn for just one track that will hit you between the shoulder blades with the bare boned intensity of some of their earlier work..." but concluded that overall it was "a flawed (slightly) masterpiece".

[13] Sounds was disappointed, saying, "Unfortunately, by developing his laid-back style, Lloyd has sacrificed some of the urgency and excitement so often present in his tales of seedy weekends and perfect lovers...