Track Listing

1. Sweetheart (With JD)
2. When You Believe (From "The Prince Of Egypt") (With Whitney Houston)
3. Whenever You Call (With Brian McKnight)
4. My All
5. Honey
6. Always Be My Baby
7. One Sweet Day (With Boyz II Men)
8. Fantasy (Featuring O.D.B.)
9. Hero
10. Dreamlover
11. I'll Be There (Featuring Trey Lorenz)
12. Emotions
13. I Don't Wanna Cry
14. Someday
15. Love Takes Time
16. Vision Of Love
17. I Still Believe

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7482 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1998-11-17
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com
Mariah Carey's #1's is as much a time capsule of '90s pop and R&B as a record of one woman's chart toppers: the disc chronicles a shift from the sweet, nearly '50s-style "Vision of Love" to more recent hip-hop-lite grooves featuring heavy input from Puffy Combs ("Honey"), Jermaine Dupri ("Sweetheart"), and O.D.B. ("Fantasy"). Some hit, some miss, but all feature the fluttery swoops that Carey substitutes for expression of feeling. Depth is beside the point, but few of these tracks are even fun. Still, after eight years, there seems to be no stopping her, and this album will hardly break her streak of successes. --Rickey Wright

Los Angeles Times
The same clichéd sentiments crop up again and again in the lyrics, which are usually co-written by Carey.... There's nothing terrible about singing hit songs ... [b]ut this homogenous presentation only emphasizes Carey's limitations.

Customer Reviews

Mariah at her best
There is a reason these songs went to number one. That reason is that they are absolutely incredible! ALways Be My Baby is truly classic, Hero is absolutley inspirational, One Sweet Day is heartwrentching. Honey is a great dance tune and Dreamlover is awesome. Believe it or not, despite her fame, I only recently discovered Mariah Carey. Her Rainbow album was coming out and Bought it because of Heartbreaker. Around that time, The radio stations started playing old Mariah Carey songs. I half-listened to them and went to buy #1's, which I figured were her only good songs. I bought it, fell in love with it and now I have all of Mariah Carey's albums. She really is a talented artist and this CD more than proves it.

Not too great, but not too bad...
There used to be a time when I bought Mariah Carey albums on the release date. When this album came out, I did it again. This album doesn't leave me much impression - many songs are lackluster and I simply don't care for, and the ones I do care for, they are familiar already. At least this album is great for early '90s nostalgia (nobody can top Mariah in this department), but it also showcases her career in decline. Especially "When You Believe" - it sounds like a desperate attempt by two outgoing divas to counter the current reigning diva, Celine Dion, without much success.

And thanks to so many sugary songs with little substance, I don't find this album to be so appealing for repeat plays in a short amount of time (i.e. long road trip in a car with a single CD player, where you don't want to stop just to change CD's). I can play Sarah McLachlan's Mirrorball and most Elton John collections over and over without getting sick of them, but with this album, I don't find that quality.

Change is good.
Some people embrace change. Some people avoid it like the plague. It's the latter that will find #1's annoying, and who will give it a low rating. This album definitely showcases how Carey has changed since she first stepped onto the music platform in the early 90s, and the older ballads are remarkably different from her newer songs. I must agree with the album art -- it is a bit trashy, and the same follows with some of her other albums -- but one, I am not here to evalute Carey's taste but rather her music, and two, weren't you tired of seeing close-ups of her face on every album?

A lot of people think Mariah's voice declined in her later years. I deny this (just listen to The Emancipation of Mimi, her new album), but I do think Mariah sold her incredible voice out a bit in favor of pop/hip-hop-"lite" sounds. That's the reason I deducted a star -- the song she does with JD ("Sweetheart") and "I Still Believe" are...empty.

However, I think "When You Believe," Mariah's duet with Whitney Houston, is quite nice. I don't seen a clashing or "duel" but rather a fusion of their voices with much musical strength.

The actual hits blend together nicely -- they are arranged in roughly reverse chronological order from her newer #1's ("Honey" and "Fantasy") to her older hits ("Vision of Love" and "Love Takes Time"). It showcases where Mariah has come from to be where she's at now, and how her music has changed. The change is not necessarily a bad thing.