I remember that period so well, because I must have had a few little grumbles about wanting to be my own musician. And I remember Pete Waterman saying, ‘All right kiddo. What kind of song do you want? What are you listening to?’ And I said, ‘I really like 'C'mon and Get My Love’ by Cathy Dennis and D Mob.‘ If you listen to that and listen to 'Better the Devil,’ it’s very similar. So it definitely marks a change, although I hadn’t left PWL, and Nick Cave wrote an amazing piece on his thoughts on ‘Better the Devil,’ which you could look up. It was the first one that had a darkness, which I probably didn’t realize at the time. I also think about that with ‘ Should Be So Lucky.’ We all sing like it’s really happy, but it’s not. She wishes she was lucky in love.

—via Paper Magazine

On a list of 30 of Kylie Minogue’s best singles, published on September 25, 2020, The Guardian ranked it as Kylie Minogue 4th best single, saying:

They may have been cursed with no sense of quality control, but Stock Aitken and Waterman could be masterful pop craftsmen and Better the Devil You Know is the evidence: an effortlessly soaring melody, a perfect updating of disco’s cocktail of jubilant music and lyrical heartbreak.