In his review of parent album Never Say Never, Shaheen Chughtai, editor for The Daily Star Lebanon, wrote that "Brandy does have a fine voice, drenched in sex-appeal, and in good form on tracks like 'Almost Doesn’t Count'." San Francisco Chronicle 's Lee Hildebrand described the song as "haunting" and added: "Brandy takes her time with the ballad, wrapping her warm, melismatic alto pipes around their melodic contours with womanly nuance." Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic cited the song one of the album's highlights along with " The Boy Is Mine" and " Have You Ever?." Billboard editor Chuck Taylor wrote that "breezy, sensual, straightforward, and drenched with those gorgeous harmonies that are recognizable in an instant, Miss Norwood serves up a tasty slow jam about letting go of love. In 2019, Roche ranked the song among his favorite productions. Recording took place at Banana Boat Studios in Burbank and at Pacifique Recording Studios in North Hollywood, California, with Peiken providing backing vocals. So we did, and then we sent it around." Picked up by Atlantic Records, the demo, produced by Roche, was eventually polished by producer Fred Jerkins III for Norwood's second album Never Say Never (1998). They resumed work on "Almost Doesn't Count" a few months later when, according to Peiken, "it was a lot clearer – not so much the genre, but that it was good enough that we couldn't leave it on the back burner – it was really good and we had to finish it.
Written in the thirty-two-bar form structure, which the pair considered "very sort of country," Peiken and Roche put the song on the back burner since they were not sure how to finish it, feeling undecided about the genre that they were looking for in the song. Maybe he never had any of those feelings, maybe it was all my imagination." He almost faced his feelings but he never quite got there – maybe that was all in my head too. Inspired by a powerful but unfruitful on-again, off-again relationship she had with a man in her college years, Peiken recalled her emotions during a writing session with Roche decades later when she "dug up that laundry list of all the 'almosts' I felt we had, and we put it into the song." In a 2020 interview, she further elaborated about the lyrics: "It was a relationship that was more in my head than in his, and I always felt like we almost got there, he almost said I love you, he almost broke up with the girlfriend he had the whole time. "Almost Doesn't Count" was written by Shelly Peiken and Guy Roche. She included the song in the set-list of various live shows and future tours, including the Never Say Never World Tour, the Human World Tour and the Slayana World Tour.
Norwood performed the song in the 1999 made-for-television musical drama film Double Platinum, directed by Nina Shengold, and starring Diana Ross and herself. The accompanying music video for "Almost Doesn't Count," filmed by Kevin Bray in the Lancaster area, depicts Norwood as an unnoticed wedding guest in the backyard of an expressway hotel, following the breakdown of her car in the Mojave Desert. It earned Norwood her third Best Female R&B Vocal Performance nomination at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards and was awarded a BMI Pop Award in 2000. A commercial success, "Almost Doesn't Count" hit the top twenty in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and on the US Billboard Hot 100. "Almost Doesn't Count" received a positive response from most music critics, who called it one of the album highlights, with major praise for Norwood's vocal performance. The song was released as the fourth overall single from Never Say Never on March 23, 1999. The song's lyrics are based on an on-again, off-again relationship that Peiken had experienced during her college years. A pop and R&B-ballad combining elements of country, it incorporates Latin flavored riffs. He would subsequently share production credit along with Roche. Atlantic Records consulted Fred Jerkins III to recut the song to be more consistent with the overall sound of the album.
It was written by Shelly Peiken and Guy Roche and recorded by Norwood for her second studio album, Never Say Never (1998). " Almost Doesn't Count" is a song by American singer Brandy Norwood.