Blame Mariah. Ever since the reigning female chart champ released her first hits compilation, 1998’s #1’s, a slew of superstar acts have inexplicably followed suit, issuing similarly titled sets that, aside from the Beatles’s 1 and Elvis’s 30 #1 Hits, don’t live up to their namesake. Even Michael Jackson and the Supremes’s collections—no-so-inventively titled Number Ones and The #1’s, respectively—are padded with songs that, quite simply, came nowhere near the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles chart, which—let’s face it—is the one chart that truly matters when boasting about the size of your big bag o’ chart-toppers. Cashing in on the trend is the recently dis-girlgrouped Destiny’s Child, whose 16-track #1’s includes only four bona fide #1 hits: “Bills, Bills, Bills,” “Say My Name,” “Independent Women, Pt. 1,” and “Bootylicious.” Maybe if they’d titled the album Most Bootyliciously Big Hits, I wouldn’t have wasted half this review on semantics and instead focused on the trio’s impressive output, which includes some of the most recognizable R&B hits of the past bling/celly/status-obsessed five years (like “Survivor,” which just missed the top spot in 2001) alongside less successful but equally genre-defining singles “Jumpin’ Jumpin’” and “Lose My Breath” (their presence here apparently justified by their #1 positions on the dance charts) and “Bug a Boo” (#1 on nothing). And just in case you thought Beyoncé, Kelly, and Michelle were only interested in their collective past, three new tracks—the awful and saccharine 2005 World Children’s Day Anthem “Stand Up for Love,” “Feel the Same Way I Do,” and the solo Beyoncé tune “Check On It” from the upcoming Pink Panther flick—show that the women of Destiny’s Child are squarely focused on their (solo) futures. Reunion Tour scheduled for 2014.
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