In his Harrison obituary for Rock's Backpages, in 2001, Mat Snow cited the track as an example of the "most compelling" aspect of Harrison's music – namely, when his songs "in those strange shadows of elusive regret and longing, even fear". Five years after this, in an album review for "Mojo" magazine, Snow described "Try Some, Buy Some" as "an anti-heroin song so seductively melodic it might induce the opposite effect". Elliot Huntley praises Harrison's "yearning" vocal as "one of the many highlights" of "Living in the Material World". Huntley considers the "hymn-like song cycle" represented by this "superb" track and the album's final two songs, "The Day the World Gets 'Round" and "That Is All", the equal of anything on "All Things Must Pass".