Upon release,
Just Go received positive reviews from music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 68 based on 6 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Allmusic editor Andy Kellman wrote that "introducing a 60-year-old artist to a younger audience with new material is asking for a lot, but Richie's devoted fanbase will find plenty to like.
Just Go, slightly more so than [previous album]
Coming Home, tends to be a happy (and comforting) medium between Richie's familiar approach and contemporary R&B." Caroline Sullivan, writing for
The Guardian, remarked that
Just Go "finds Richie in reliably smooth voice, ruminating placidly about love. Fair enough; that's what he's for, and he's game enough to couch it [...] He's rarely sounded so unruffled. What would it be like if he let go a bit?"
New York Times journalist Nate Chinen felt that while
Just Go came across like "a textbook adult-contemporary album, it also lends credible emotional footing to the songs. It's one reason that Mr. Richie doesn't sound out of his element singing on tracks provided by contemporary R&B hit makers, complete with up-to-the-minute production."
People critics Chuck Arnold and Joey Bartolomeo wrote that
Akon,
The-Dream and Stargate "put a fresh but familiar spin on Richie's sound. Still, the old guy falls into a bit of a midtempo rut." Similarly,
Entertainment Weekly critic Leah Greenblatt found that Richie's collaborators "may be top dogs on their own territory, but they don't have much on the old tricks of the
Commodore-turned-1980s solo star. On his ninth studio album, undifferentiated swaths of midtempo digital groove leave one longing for the (relative) analog authenticity of vintage Lionel." ==Chart performance==