Like his previous album, the politically topical and somewhat abrasive Some Time in New York City, Mind Games received mixed reviews upon release.

[5] Wanting to produce an album that would be more accepted than his previous politically charged commercial flop Some Time in New York City, Lennon began writing and demoing a few songs for Mind Games in his Greenwich Village apartment.

[4] Amid frequent court appearances battling to stay in the United States, Lennon became stressed,[3] a situation that was only worsened by constant surveillance by the FBI,[3][4][6] due to his political activism.

[8] Under the moniker of "The Plastic U.F.Ono Band", Lennon engaged the services of session drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist David Spinozza, Gordon Edwards on bass, Arthur Jenkins on percussion, Michael Brecker on saxophone, Ken Ascher on piano and organ, and the vocal backing of a group called Something Different.

[11] Mind Games was recorded between July and August 1973 in Lennon's characteristic quick fashion, and was mixed over a two-week period.

[7] The album continued Lennon's previous attempts to chronicle his life through his songs,[10] the tone of which displays a range of mixed feelings.

[23] Other songs on the album are more light-hearted and optimistic, marking the return of Lennon's humour and wit after the uncompromising doctrine espoused on Some Time in New York City.

[27] Lennon later said that it failed as a song, however; in an interview with Playboy, he remarked: "It was a good lick, but I couldn't get the words to make sense.

[29][30] Another rock track, "Meat City" contains lyrics more in keeping with Lennon's earlier penchant for obscure imagery over the personal.

[34] "Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)" dated from late 1971, having started out as little more than a chorus, after Lennon acquired a National guitar.

",[37] sped up and backwards, while the mix used as the B-side to the "Mind Games" single gave the same treatment to the phrase "Check the album!

[5][7] Mind Games was released on 29 October in America[40] and 16 November in Britain,[3][nb 4] around the same time as Ono's Feeling the Space.

[3] Although Mind Games sold better than Some Time in New York City,[11] its release "came and went with barely a ripple", according to Beatles biographer Chris Ingham.

[44] Author Peter Doggett similarly writes that the album "did nothing to alter [Lennon's] status as the least commercially successful Beatle".

[45] Jon Landau of Rolling Stone magazine assessed the songs on Mind Games as "his worst writing yet" and considered that Lennon was "helplessly trying to impose his own gargantuan ego upon an audience ... [that] is waiting hopefully for him to chart a new course".

It sounds like out-takes from Imagine, which may not seem so bad but means that Lennon is falling back on ideas (intellectual and musical) that have lost their freshness for him: Still, the single works, and let's hope he keeps right on stepping.

While noting the singer's attempts to re-create "the lyricism and melodic inventiveness" of Imagine, Carr and Tyler continued: "The reason the total album is not more effective can be laid at the door of Lennon's personal situation, and on his tendency to react to events, instead of initiating them.

"[57] In The Beatles Apart (1981), Bob Woffinden considered that, aside from the "excellent" title track and "Bring on the Lucie", Mind Games "consisted of so-so songs that hardly lodged in the memory", and that "The best one can say of the album is that it's exceptionally well produced.

"[58] In a more recent review, for AllMusic, critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes that "confusion ... lies at the heart of the album.

[nb 15][12] Expanded versions of Mind Games were reissued on 12 July 2024 in several formats, including a super deluxe edition limited to 1100 units worldwide.