A widespread critical success, The ArchAndroid received praise for its thematic concepts and Monáe's eclectic musical range.

[5] In an interview for the Chicago Tribune, Monáe said that she drew inspiration for the album from the quotation, "The mediator between the hand and the mind is always the heart".

[5] Huw Jones of Slant Magazine described her sound as "a unique gray area between neo soul, funk, and art rock".

The notion of space travel and 'new worlds' becomes a metaphor for breaking the chains that enslave minorities of all types – a theme that has a long tradition in African-American music, from Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic to Cannibal Ox and OutKast".

[10] Seth Colter Walls of Newsweek described the album as "rocking in parts like Dirty Mind–era Prince, unfolding in a suite form that recalls Abbey Road's side two, and bumping throughout with the best innovations of contemporary hip-hop".

"Mushrooms & Roses" is the next track on the album and it has themes of psychedelic music and it has influences by such songs as The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and Prince's "Purple Rain".

[24] To promote the album, Monáe hosted a listening session for press and VIPs at Rubin Museum of Art in New York City on March 4, 2010.

[25] A short film, teaser trailer style, was released on April 14 on YouTube showing an aerial view of the fictional futuristic city of Metropolis.

[46] Reviewing for the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot hailed The ArchAndroid as "an audacious, sometimes bewildering statement",[40] and AllMusic critic Andy Kellman called it "an extravagant 70-minute album involving more imagination, conceptual detail, and stylistic turnabouts than most gatefold prog rock epics".

[47] Matthew Cole from Slant Magazine described it as "an elaborately performed and consummately freaky cyberpunk epic ... so stylistically leftfield in terms of its sound".

Club's Genevieve Koski wrote that "Monáe’s inexhaustible swagger and singular style sell both the high-concept theatrics and the schizophrenic sonics".

[44] Perpetua elaborated on Monáe's incorporation of science-fiction and Afrofuturist concepts and the album's "basic appeal", stating: Her imagination and iconography deepen the record as an experience and give her license to go far out, but it ultimately serves as a fun, flashy framework for pop songs with universal lyrical sentiments.

As with all the musical genres blended into The ArchAndroid, Monáe uses the conventions of science fiction as a means of communication, tapping into mythic archetypes for their immediate resonance and power.

And where many concept albums run a high risk of being pompous, cryptic, and self-important, Monáe keeps things playful, lively, and accessible.

[44]Urb's Dan Vidal called the album "a spectrum of sound—packed and arranged perfectly into a masterfully composed (debut) full-length body of work... [a] genre-defying masterpiece".

[49] Comparing it to singer Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989), Brentin Mock of The Atlantic called The ArchAndroid "a smothered funk, though perhaps at times too thick, too inaccessible, but not so much I didn't want to shake my ass" and viewed it as musically progressive, stating "Monáe has given pop music its first Toni Morrison moment, where fantasy, funk, and the ancestors come together for an experience that evolves one's soul... You really don't know whether you want to diagram it, dance to it, or just be dumbstruck.

[10] Robert Christgau was less impressed in The Barnes & Noble Review, deeming it "the most overrated album of the year" while writing that Monáe's "songwriting is 60th percentile, her singing technical, her sci-fi plot the usual rot".

[51] It topped lists by several publications,[52] including PopMatters,[53] the Chicago Tribune,[54] and The Guardian, which published the following assessment: "No other album this year seems so alive with possibility.

[55] In other year-end lists, The ArchAndroid placed second (Paste),[56] fifth (Vibe's Chris Yuscavage),[57] sixth (Nitsuh Abebe of New York[58] and Spin),[59] eighth (MTV[60] and Entertainment Weekly),[61] and 21st (NME).