"The song features a dance-pop,[5] Europop[6][7] and house[8] sound and has been compared to Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" and its sampled counterpart, "Tell Me Why" by Supermode, although possible similarities have been declared unintended.

Nick Levine from Digital Spy awarded the song with four stars out of five, giving it a positive review.

"[11] Ben Norman from About.com called the song the "Best Dance Crossover Track", while saying "Robbins [Entertainment] has since made peace with me by backing and promoting Swedish singer September and this Europop confection.

In the UK and Ireland, "Cry for You" was released in April 2008 on the Hard2Beat Records label, a subsidiary of Ministry of Sound, in a new remix with a new video.

In the Netherlands the song was a huge success too, peaking at number four and staying in the top forty for twenty-one weeks.

In New Zealand airplay and official charts, the song debuted at number thirty-nine on the issue date of 22 September 2008.

The international version is set at the edge of a futuristic city inside a large solitary building which could be a prison, barracks or factory.

Inside are hundreds of clones dressed in black latex catsuits who are marching in unison, watched over by women wearing white.

They at first appear to be marching towards a screen which shows September singing and dancing while wearing a strapless dress.

She is pursued by the women guards dressed in white who fire their laser guns, but September reaches a door and escapes outside.

[18] Beginning in late 2018, "Cry for You" received renewed interest when it appeared in a popular meme format on Twitter.

The meme juxtaposes a portion of the song's chorus, in which Marklund sings "you'll never see me again", with captions that ascribe the statement to entities such as socks that go missing after doing laundry, "Tumblr users after December 17th" (in reference to the site's ban on pornography), or "Lady Gaga to pop music after the gays [let] Artpop flop".