An embracement of R&B and Philadelphia soul, the song presents an Englishman's impressionist portrait of America at the time, featuring various characters and allusions to American totems and events.

Ranked among Bowie's best songs by numerous publications, critics praise "Young Americans" as a successful transition to soul music following the artist's glam rock releases.

[1][5][6][7] Discussing the stylistic departure in his book Starman: The Definitive Biography, author Paul Trynka describes the song as a "statement of intent", wherein Bowie was "repositioning the brand".

[10] According to biographer Nicholas Pegg, "Young Americans" presents a rapid lyric "sketching an Englishman's impressionist portrait of 20th century America".

[11] Production team the Matrix noted "America" as "a bit like a teenager: brimming with energy and imagination, occasionally overstepping the mark, but always with a great sense of possibility".

Author Peter Doggett interprets the song, in one way, as "the portrait of a fantasy: the global dream of how it would feel to have life laid out before you in the land of plenty".

[9] Throughout the song, allusions are made to the Watergate scandal – US President Richard Nixon having resigned only three days prior to its recording[8] – the McCarthy witch hunts ("now you have been the un-American") and civil rights struggles ("sit on your hands on a bus of survivors").

[9] "Young Americans" also contains a vocal quotation of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (1967): "I heard the news today, oh boy",[d] which anticipated Bowie's imminent collaboration with former band member John Lennon.

[9][13] With Tony Visconti producing and Carl Paruolo engineering, the lineup consisted of Bowie, Carlos Alomar on guitar, Willie Weeks on bass, Mike Garson on piano, Andy Newmark on drums, David Sanborn on alto saxophone and Larry Washington on congas.

[9][11] Bowie wrote the middle section after visiting various New York clubs in the spring of 1974 and learning DJs enjoyed singles with breakdowns, such as Eddie Kendricks' "Girl You Need a Change of Mind".

Reviewing the single, a writer for Cash Box said that Bowie "places his voice against a very R&B oriented track and with such a rock solid foundation for his wall of sound he feels secure hurling his socially conscious lyrics around like so much graffiti".

[29] Critic Robert Christgau, who called the album an almost total failure in his Record Guide, gave sole praise to "Young Americans", in which "pain stimulates compassion".

[30] In a review for Rolling Stone, Jon Landau praised the song as "one of his handful of classics, a bizarre mixture of social comment, run-on lyric style, English pop and American soul".

[13] Bowie continued performing "Young Americans", often equipped with an acoustic guitar, on the 1983 Serious Moonlight, 1987 Glass Spider and 1990 Sound+Vision concert tours.

Despite bassist Gail Ann Dorsey's consistent requests to play the song throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Bowie retired "Young Americans" from live performances after Sound+Vision.

[11] Musically simple, lyrically fragmented, emotionally inspired, "Young Americans" presented a Bowie who had never been heard on record before, catching almost everyone who had followed him by surprise.

[3] Deemed a masterpiece by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine,[48] Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield hailed the song as one of Bowie's finest, with "the rhythm inspiring his most passionate (and compassionate) love letter to his fans".

[5] The Guardian's Alexis Petridis commented, "A white British rock star adopting the breezy, sumptuous sound of Philly soul shouldn't have worked at all, but it did, to life-affirming effect.

"[51] The "ain't there one damn song..." vocal break was later selected by Mojo magazine as the most impressive passage in Bowie's entire catalogue,[1] and by a Rolling Stone writer as his "royal peak".