#1's is the first greatest hits album by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey, released by Columbia Records on November 17, 1998.

The album was met with some criticism regarding the new songs and the decision to only include Carey's number-one hits in the United States.

It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, topped the charts in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Greece and Taiwan; and reached the top-ten throughout almost every major worldwide music market.

An updated version of #1's with Carey's then-eighteen number ones, #1 to Infinity, was released on May 15, 2015, coinciding with the beginning of her residency show of the same name in Las Vegas.

During mid-1998, after the release of her sixth studio album, Butterfly (1997), the previous September, Carey was in the midst of developing a film and soundtrack project titled All That Glitters.

[7] Carey has frequently cited "Underneath the Stars" (1996) and "Breakdown" (1998) as examples of songs she was unsuccessful in releasing on the collection.

"[7] In December 2001, Columbia released the album Greatest Hits, which featured Carey's number-one singles alongside songs she said "needed to be really heard", such as "Underneath the Stars" and "Forever".

[9] Carey discussed the album in an interview with MTV, stating, "There's a lot of songs that I'm happy are gonna see the light of day.

[10][11] Three other songs were included from her self-titled debut album, of them were "Love Takes Time", "Someday" and "I Don't Wanna Cry".

Another song that was featured on #1's was Carey's version of The Jackson 5 classic, "I'll Be There", which was the lead single from her live album, MTV Unplugged.

The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks and was described as a "slight piece of pop fluff", representing a more commercial side to Carey than the "more ambitious", "Vision of Love".

However, it was the song's official remix, which featured rap verses from Ol' Dirty Bastard, which made the album cut.

[4] The second song from Daydream to be featured on the album was "One Sweet Day", Carey's duet with Boyz II Men.

"[18] Solely written by Carey and Walter Afanasieff, "My All" featured guitar arpeggios, which were synthetically created with the clever use of sampling and playing keyboard notes.

[7] During the development of All That Glitters, Carey had been introduced to DreamWorks producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who asked her if she would record the song "When You Believe" for the soundtrack to the animated film The Prince of Egypt.

If we were ever going to come together on any kind of record, this is definitely the right one, and really the coolest thing to me is that after all of the drama and everybody making it like we had a rivalry, she was just really cool and we had a really good time in the studio.

Babyface expressed how he went through more than one version of the song and described its production as a beautiful movie ballad, something different than he, Carey or Houston ever recorded.

"[6] She had characterised it as "a very big ballad but in an inspirational way" and denied speculation that there had been past rivalry or animosity between her and Houston prior to its recording: "I never even really talked to her until this.

[28][29] In the US, due to the song's low radio airplay, "Sweetheart" only reached number twenty-five on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles.

[3] 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.

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 #1's they're like a mile-long elevator ride."

"[2] The album received a scathing review from Britain's NME magazine, with its critic David Stubbs writing that Carey is "cold-eyed" and her output calculated to achieve commercial success.

[41] As executives at Columbia had done during the album's development, Eric Boehlert of Rolling Stone noted the importance of the release date of #1's and other albums on sale during the same period: "Artists who make a habit of hitting it big during the holiday shopping season are wise indeed, as sales traditionally skyrocket.

As such packages go, #1's was a solid retrospective of Mariah's chart hits, but because these songs were oversaturating the radio, including a favorite nonhit album track or two might have made a nice change.

"[23]#1's was released in the same week as several other albums by high-profile musicians such as Garth Brooks, Jewel, Method Man, Ice Cube and Whitney Houston.

MTV News called November 17 "what is shaping up to be the music industry's Super Tuesday ... most onlookers know that first week sales aren't everything, but they will also tell you that they are pretty darn important.

By 2003, the album received a double-platinum certification by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), denoting shipments of two million copies throughout Europe, until that year.

[45] The album received a platinum certification in Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, where it shipped 800,000 copies.

Aside from its success in Europe, the album experienced its highest sales in Japan (after the US), where it sold 3,250,000 copies in the first three months after its release.

[47][48] In 2022, the album was certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of six million copies throughout the United States.