Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain: Tales of Romance and Tragedy, described Tillis as having a "torrid soprano", "vivid songwriting", and "enchanting wit". Writers have taken notice of Tillis's use of wordplay in her material. Reviewing All of This Love for Country Standard Time, Joel Bernstein noted Tillis's affinity for wordplay in her song titles, such as on that album's "Tequila Mockingbird". Nash criticized the song for similar reasons, and Kevin John Coyne of Country Universe cited "Blue Rose Is" as another example of wordplay. Bernstein also thought of her decision to produce All of This Love by herself that "tastefulness continues to be Tillis' trademark". In an interview with Country Universe in 2020, Tillis stated that her later albums featured fewer songs she wrote than her earlier albums due to her own criticism of her work. She ultimately decided to start co-writing again on Looking for a Feeling because she considered her own writing to be "words out of [her] heart". Nash, reviewing Collection in 1994, thought that because the album contained material recorded earlier in her career, it lacked the "plucky personality and the supercharged vocals that now punch their way out of the radio". Both Nash and Larry Crowley of The Arizona Republic thought that "Spilled Perfume", which is about one woman confronting another over a one-night stand, displayed feminist themes. Coyne thought that Put Yourself in My Place showed an unusual amount of artistic freedom for a new country music act in the 1990s. He considered "Maybe It Was Memphis" to be her signature song, stating that its "fiery performance and the aggressive production still sound fresh today". Being the daughter of a country musician, she was regularly compared to her father. Because of this, she told the Associated Press in 2017 that she felt the best advice to give to an aspiring musician was "be yourself". She also said that her father exposed her to other musical influences besides himself, such as Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Despite this, she also noted that her father was very strict about what music she could listen to and what concerts she could attend as a child; specifically, she stated that her listening to The Beatles "alienated" him. In addition, she stated that differences in musical tastes were what ended her role as his backing vocalist. Of her attempts to establish a musical identity separate from her father,