Number 1's (Mariah Carey Album) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The album received generally mixed reviews from music critics. #1s was awarded four and a half out of five stars from Heather Phares of Allmusic. Phares complimented the album's content, feeling the song selection was too commercial, but very strong. Additionally, Phares wrote "Her career has been an extraordinary succession of number ones and record-breaking firsts in the music world, her entire album catalog has achieved RIAA multi-platinum status." Phares also commented on the accompanying DVD, writing, "Interviews and interactive menus make #1s a better-than-average DVD video collection and one that will doubtlessly please Carey's legions of fans." Mark Bautz, an editor from Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B-. Bautz felt that Carey's primary limitation was "wan, homogeneous songs" and that "hearing them months apart on the radio makes them passable, but strung together on #1s they're like a mile-long elevator ride." While criticizing the album for its song selection and content, he complimented the songs "My All" and the remix for "Fantasy", writing, "that said, though, Fantasy (with O.D.B.) and My All stand up as two of the best pop tunes of the '90s." The album received a scathing review from Britain's NME magazine, with its critic writing:

"I fear Mariah Carey. Superficially, she might seem like a purveyor of saccharine bilge like 'Hero' ... But that's bullshit. You don't sell 90 million records unless you reserve that fluffybunny stuff for your sucker fans ... you gotta be cold-eyed, hard-boiled and have balls of steel ... She'll do whatever it takes. And her most fiendish weapon is the duet. If the MOR market needs servicing, she'll duet with Luther or Whitney ... If her contemporary edge needs sharpening, she'll hang with the Wu-Tang Clan ... If you're big in the R&B charts, like Brian McKnight, she'll be in there ... like a heat-seeking parasite. She don't give a fuck. She destroys competition by sucking them dry and spitting them out."

In a review for Carey's 2001 album, Greatest Hits, Sal Cinquemani of Slant felt the album was solely a string of Carey's most commercial and popular hits, however, not her best. Cinquemani complimented Greatest Hits and wrote, "It seems like only yesterday that we were served with the self-congratulatory #1s, a collection of Carey's record-breaking string of chart-toppers, but the 27-track Greatest Hits is the singer's first proper hits compilation." In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau gave the album a "choice cut" rating, indicating "a good song on an album that isn't worth your time or money; Some (choice cut)s are arbitrarily personal, others inescapably social."