"[3] Tracks on the album include Jimmy Destri's Motown pastiche "Danceway", while "Dragonfly" has a science-fiction theme to its lyrics about a race in space.

The producers of the film, however, favored a track composed by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson and asked Blondie to record that song instead.

Compared to Blondie's three previous albums with Mike Chapman as producer (Parallel Lines, Eat to the Beat and Autoamerican), The Hunter proved to be a disappointment, both commercially and critically, with mixed reviews.

[7] In The Boston Phoenix, Deborah Frost said "Blondie’s sixth album makes the most of the band’s pretensions and the least of its pop instincts ... Where’s the hint of intelligence, the thimbleful of inspiration, the shred of evidence that might suggest these songs weren't picked up at a fire sale?

"[12] Retrospectively, William Ruhlmann of AllMusic complains that the album sounds like the contractual obligation it is, largely awash with "funk-rock tracks with the barest of melodies", and incoherent or impenetrable lyrics.

"[2] Critics from Trouser Press write that the group's "excitement about musical recombination had simply degenerated into a polished but sterile capability of manipulating a wide variety of stylistic devices."

"[5] Rob Sheffield of the Spin Alternative Record Guide (1995) dismissed both The Hunter and its predecessor, Autoamerican, for being "bogged down in increasingly fussy and belabored art-rock.

[6] The Hunter was digitally remastered and reissued by Chrysalis Records UK in 1994, and again by EMI-Capitol in 2001, both times with the 12″ version of "War Child" as the only bonus track.