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Available for the first time on vinyl, Number Ones features 18 of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits. This double-LP collection includes iconic tracks across his discography, including “Billie Jean,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Black or White,” “You Rock My World” and more. — (via Label)

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When Jackson was cooking with gas, during most of the 1980s, only Madonna and Prince could touch him. It's hard to imagine another case in which success proved so corrosive: the creative well ran dry just as Jackson began calling himself King of Pop, in the post-Dangerous early 1990s.

Despite a back-to-funk-basics return with You Rock my World, the spectre of the post-Bashir Jackson utterly overshadows his music. What better time, then, for a collection of singles that have all, as the label puts it, topped the charts "somewhere in the world"? There are six UK number ones - mainly filler like Black or White - but the 11 tracks from Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad remind you how close to perfection he once came. — (via Guardian)

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Since Michael Jackson botched his first hits collection by pairing it with a new album of material in a double-disc set, making it considerably less attractive for those legions of listeners who want just a single disc of hits, it's both inevitable and welcome that he attempted another compilation a few years later. This second collection, Number Ones, was released in the wake of the 2000 blockbuster Beatles 1, which rewrote the rules of modern-day hits collections from major artists, since it not only contained a generous, representative cross section of hits, it had a specific focus and did gangbuster business. An avalanche of similar-minded compilations by other titans followed, notably Elvis' 30 #1 Hits and the Rolling Stones' Forty Licks, and MJ's Number Ones is part of that wave.

For some artists, sticking to number one hits isn't a bad way to make a collection — the Beatles are a perfect example, actually, since even if 1 didn't contain such seminal items as "Strawberry Fields Forever," it still offered a full, representative portrait of their career. Jackson doesn't fare so well by the number one rule. First of all, he doesn't strictly follow the number one rule, leaving behind the number one hit duet "Say Say Say" with Paul McCartney, substituting a 1981 live version of "Ben" for the original hit, adding "Break of Dawn," an Invincible album cut never released as a single, and including "Thriller," "Smooth Criminal," and "Earth Song," none of which hit number one, and the latter wasn't even released as a single in the U.S. (there is, of course, the requisite previously unreleased song, the OK slow jam "One More Chance").

But these problems are inherent with any collection that concentrates just on the charts, not the music that got the songs on the charts in the first place. And while Number Ones contains enough of the big songs to recommend it for those listeners who are looking just for a cross section of the biggest hits from Jackson's career, it is also true that the perfect Michael Jackson hits collection has yet to be assembled. Maybe next time, particularly if he's granted an entry into Sony's generally excellent The Essentials series. — (via AllMusic)

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— 2LP, reissued on 180g heavyweight black vinyl
— Housed in gatefold sleeve

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Label: Epic / Legacy
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo
Reissued: 2026 / Originally Released: 2003
Genre: Rock, Funk / Soul, Pop
Style: Ballad, Contemporary R&B, Disco, Pop Rock, Funk

File under: Funk / Soul
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