Julian Lennon sent the Charisma Records label head, Tony Stratton Smith, a demo tape in September 1983.

[2] A month later,[3] Lennon, with his friends Justin Clayton and Carlton Morales, started a three-month stay at a French château, Manoir de Valotte, in Saint-Benin-d'Azy, France, writing and demoing songs for what would appear on Valotte.

[4] In an interview with Rock Bill magazine, Lennon said that he "had a lot of the material" before embarking to the château.

[2] In an interview for No 1 magazine, Lennon said the pieces were not originally "for an album", and that some of the music was "written several years ago, some [...] new".

Lennon had asked about his availability[7] after he heard Ramone's work on Billy Joel's The Nylon Curtain album.

[10] The title track is named after Manoir de Valotte, Lennon said it was a "kind of dream house [...] so that's what started off the whole song".

[13] Shortly after the cover photo was taken, Lennon fell out with his then girlfriend and "Too Late for Goodbyes" was written,[9][14] halfway through the recording of the album.

[25] Upon the album's release, Paul McCartney sent Lennon a telegram, with the message: "Good luck, old fruit".

[17] Lennon said in an interview with Music Express, that the album was his "way of getting a foot in the door" with the songs "in entirely different styles".

[28] In the U.S., "Too Late for Goodbyes" was released in January 1985,[nb 8][18] peaking at number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, No.

[25] On 9 January 1985, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

[26][32] On 13 September 1985, "Too Late for Goodbyes" was nominated for MTV's "Best New Artist" award, but lost to 'Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry".

[36] In a contemporary review for Saturday Review magazine, music critic John Swenson gave Valotte two out of five stars and critiqued that Lennon's voice lacks the "tortured cynicism and urgency that characterised his father's and, consequently, Valotte sounds like languid outtakes from Imagine.

He found the album's similarities to John Lennon's later work strange, observing "a middle-aged sensibility, reinforced by Phil Ramone's elegant but often stodgy production, applied to unashamedly youthful themes.

"[38] Robert Christgau, writing for The Village Voice, gave Valotte a "C" and panned it as "bland professional pop of little distinction and less necessity—tuneful at times, tastefully produced of course, and with no discernible reason for being".

Christgau found Lennon's vocal resemblance to his father "eerie" and viewed him as "more Frank Sinatra Jr. than (even) Hank Williams Jr."[1] In a retrospective review, Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave Valotte three-and-a-half out of five stars and wrote that it is "by any measure the debut of a gifted pop melodicist."

He viewed that on the album's highlights, Lennon exhibited a strong sense for "Beatlesque pop songwriting, drawing equally from [John] Lennon and [Paul] McCartney", and at his worst, he drew too often on contemporary conventions such as synthesisers.

[40] Cash Box said that the third single "Say You're Wrong" "has a light salsa feel with a bouncy hook" and has a "less ponderous mood" than the first two singles from the album, "Valotte" and "Too Late for Goodbyes," with its festive horn backup and strict percussion.

"[41] Cash Box said of the fourth single "Jesse" that it's "a bit more toned down than previous Lennon hits, but with its dynamic performances and involving melody and lyrics.