No More Drama - Reception

Reception

The album holds a Metacritic score of 77 out of 100 based on "generally favorable reviews". Robert Marriott of Rolling Stone gave the album three and a half stars out of five, and called it "less volatile and less emotionally jagged than Blige's earlier work". He highlighted "Family Affair", "Steal Away" and the title track as the best songs on the album. At Allmusic, Liana Jonas gave it four stars out of five, saying Blige had "come a long way" since her breakthrough album What's the 411? from 1992, and that she had "blossomed into an all-out R&B diva". She praised Blige's versatile voice, and her ability to write lyrics that people could relate to.

The album debuted at #2 on the Billboard album chart, and stayed in the top hundred of that chart for several months. "Family Affair" peaked at #1 for six weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the early autumn of 2001.

While the third single "No More Drama" climbed the charts, Blige earned two Grammy nominations.Family Affair was nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and the album No More Drama was nominated for Best R&B Album, but Blige failed to win either award. In 2002, Mary was nominated once again for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "He Think I Don't Know" and won.

Rhapsody (online music service) ranked the album #4 on its "Best R&B Albums of the Decade" list.

In Germany, the album was her most successful one in her career in this country, reaching #13 and staying in the German Albums Chart for 35 weeks Estimated worldwide sales for the album are at 6,500,000. "No More Drama" has sold 2,225,000 copies in Europe alone and sold over 3 million copies in the U.S. alone.