song "introduces the first sorta-ballad to [...Baby One More Time]", and considered it "reasonable enough, though through three songs, Spears' lyric approach appears to be entirely about guys. Like, she never stops thinking about them". Caryn Ganz of Rolling Stone called "Sometimes" a "further hit" from ...Baby One More Time, along with "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" and "(You Drive Me) Crazy". Spence D. of IGN considered "Sometimes" a "[Max Martin] glossy grown-up pop" song, while Annabel Leathes of BBC Online said the song "represents the innocent years when Britney annoyed and titillated in equal measure". Nicholas Hautman, from Us Weekly, deemed it "the epitome of bubblegum pop, a genre that unjustly got a bad rap. Its key change is what dreams are made of". Bustles Alex Kristelis called it "a perfect example of good cheese". While reviewing ...Baby One More Time on its 20th anniversary, Billboards Chuck Arnold felt that "there is a wistful melancholy to this diary entry of a song that digs deeper into the doubts and insecurities below the bubbly surface of both 'Crazy' and the title track". The staff from Entertainment Weekly placed it at number 22 on their ranking of Spears's songs and said that "not quite a ballad, not yet a banger, ['Sometimes'] cemented Britney as pop's good girl of '99". For Daniel Megarry from Gay Times, it was one of the "standout tracks" from ...Baby One More Time and wrote that "it’s impossible not to feel nostalgia when the summery strings of 'Sometimes' grace your eardrums". Nayer Nissim, from Pink News, deemed it one of Spears' "more adult (but not adult) early tracks that drips with '90s singer-songwritery charm". Shannon Barbour from Cosmopolitan opined that it was "cool, but mostly forgettable". During the 2000 BMI Pop Awards, "Sometimes" was honored with the award of Most Performed BMI Song. In 2017, ShortList's Dave Fawbert listed the song as containing "one of the greatest key changes in music history". Commercial performance "Sometimes" achieved commercial success worldwide. The song reached number one in Belgium (Flanders), Netherlands and New Zealand, and was certified Gold in the latter by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), for selling more than 7,500 physical units of the single. It also peaked at number two in Australia, where it was later certified Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), after shipping over 70,000 units, and number