Tracks such as No Good (Start the Dance) and Voodoo People exemplify a sound which helped define the 90s electronic music scene.

When Liam Howlett arrived at the cutting room for the final stage of the album's production, he realised that all the tracks he had planned would not fit onto a CD.

In his review for NME, Dele Fadele called the album "a stormy requiem for those under siege by the heavy-handed, almost fascistic Criminal Justice Bill", adding that the Prodigy "show that you don't need elaborate texts to send a message across, just hints by way of titles, sampled voices and dialogue, and a wide-ranging musical mood that fires the imagination.

"[12] Andrew Harrison of Select deemed it "possibly the best electronic pop record you'll hear this year, the instant headrush of hardcore techno studded over with irresistible hooks and harnessed to a series of merciless grooves.

"[15] In the United States, Robert Christgau praised it as "one of the rare records that's damn near everything you want cheap music to be",[11] while Rolling Stone reviewer Paul Evans noted that although its political subtext may be overlooked by American listeners, the "truly trippy" album "generates universal dance fever.

"[5] Comparing it with the Prodigy's 1992 debut Experience, Alternative Press found that Music for the Jilted Generation "throws much darker shapes" and "slams harder and rawer and covers more ground".

[19] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, John Bush lauded Music for the Jilted Generation as "an effective statement of intent" in response to the Criminal Justice Act and noted the Prodigy's move towards a "grubbier" and less sample-reliant sound, "away from the American-influenced rave and acid house of the past and toward a uniquely British vision of breakbeat techno that was increasingly allied to the limey invention of drum'n'bass.

Tracks 5-9 from the second CD are previously releasedIn addition to the film samples mentioned above, Liam Howlett incorporated a significant amount of musical material from other artists:[24]