"Steve Reich had done this wonderful record called Music for Eighteen Musicians, which involved marimbas and I think, of all the systems composers, his work had a lot of textures and colours and grooves to them that I really responded to.

The device, which consisted of a small speaker, a nine-volt battery, a volume control and an input jack, was dubbed "the $9.95" by Gabriel's band as Larry Fast had purchased the transistor radio at RadioShack for that price.

The marimba playing, which author Durrell Bowman described as "rhythmically insistent" and "minimalist", drops out at the song's more rock–oriented bridge, which includes instrumentation of electric guitar, bass, and drums, the latter of which was provided by Phil Collins.

[14] Similar to his This Way Up tour, a series of lighting arms hovered and swung over Gabriel during one part of the song, although he remained standing for this portion.

[16][17] Writing for Sounds, Hugh Fielder noted Gabriel's "uninhibited" vocal delivery on "No Self Control" and expressed surprise that the song had reached the top 50 in the UK.

[18] Nick Kent of NME praised the song as a "masterpiece of conceit and implementation" and wrote that it was "a startling piece of music, as close to an aural Taxi Driver as one can get."

"[2] Graeme Thompson of Uncut magazine called "No Self Control" one of the album's "terrific songs" that was "greatly enhanced by a vaulting spirit of adventure.