Yea-Sayers:

"Not so good as 'Charming Man' say some, but I'd say better. A wailing, wordless hook from your man Morrissey hovers ghost-like over a rubbery rockabilly beat, not marred one bit by Johnny Guitar Marr's springheeled periphery riffery. And the lyrics cut you, too. Perfect in its detente of tough and tender... Give these men a big, big hit."
- Paul Du Noyer, New Musical Express, January 21, 1984

"They're no fluke but hold hard. This is no 'Charming Man,' no not even his shadow. What we have here is our man Morrissey harking back to look forward and coming up with something not a million leg-pulls away from an earlyish Jethro Tull B-side. The difference between 'What Difference...' and 'This Charming Man' is, in fact, charm. It lacks it, spectacularly substituting a rocking pace for its predecessor's lilting melancholy. Morrissey has trouble making his words scan the lines, his big ideas scurry around for one little tune; a clumsy trait that is bound to be touted as his trademark. Sloth posing as innovation? Too early to tell but right now The Smiths' nearest allies are Aztec Camera in that they're both Nick Heyward nicely out of tune. But is 'What Difference...' any good? I'm undecided - I just wish it was great and it isn't."
- Unknown Reviewer

"What difference do the Smiths make? Not a lot, but this ringing resurrection of a thinly disguised old R&B riff is ethereally addictive. The first Eighties band to be sponsored by Interflora, the Smiths are the musical equivalent of cling-film - suffocating and skin-tight but thoroughly see-through. They're nothing special, but this'll be a minor hit nevertheless, especially with the Polydor sales force behind it, and I can't wait for the Sandie Shaw team-up. Puppet on a string, anyone?"
- Unknown Reviewer

"There's a couple of songs I don't like. In fact, I didn't really like them at the time. Like 'What Difference Does It Make', I thought was absolutely awful the day after the record was pressed..."
- Morrissey, Q, September 1992

"For me, almost all the records have been absolutely perfect, but I can't deny that there are some that haven't aged so gracefully - 'What Difference Does It Make?' ... I regret the production on that now. But that's the only regret, although I might seem like the kind of person that has many regrets."
- Morrissey, Jamming!, December, 1984

"It was all right. I didn't think it was a particularly strong one. A lot of people liked it and it got to No. 10. It followed 'This Charming Man' and was part of that peak. It was all right. It went down great live, and that's when I liked it."
- Johnny Marr, Record Collector, November/December 1992

"We used to have a version of What Difference Does It Make? which was a lot more rumbly drum-wise, more of a jungley rhythm. John Porter listened to it and said, 'Try it like this,' very much straight 4s. I thought, Hmmm, I don't really like this, and Morrissey looked at me as if to say, 'No, I agree with you, Mike.' So, me and Morrissey would be sitting on one couch, and Johnny and John would be on the other, both grumbling away at the others. We tried it John's way and he was bouncing around the room, like, 'Cool, sounds more like a single!' And of course he was right — it turned out to be one of our biggest hits!"
- Mike Joyce, Mojo, March 2000