sink into the murk", and that "there are good moments on The Velvet Rope, but at its running time [...] it's hard to work up the patience to find them". In a retrospective review, BBC Music stated that "[i]t's far too long. It does feel like you've given over a considerable chunk of your life to it by its end, an unfortunate by-product of the CD era with its overriding desire to fill up every last second of each disc". However, a positive review of the record was given on the whole, with its author calling it "[m]ature and experimental... Possibly the great lost 90s trip hop album". In October 2022, Pitchfork reviewed the deluxe edition of the album with a rating of 9.4 out of 10 Accolades Jackson was awarded at the American Music Awards and nominated for "Top Pop Artist" at the Billboard Awards, with "I Get Lonely" receiving a Grammy Award nomination and "Together Again" nominated at the MTV Video Music Awards. Internationally, Jackson was nominated for "Best International Female" at the BRIT Awards, winning "Best Foreign Artist" and "Best Foreign Album" at the Danish Music Awards, "Best International Female" at the Norwegian Hit-Awards, "Best Female" at the MTV Europe Music Awards, and "Best International Female" for three consecutive years at the TMF Awards. Jackson was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to Pop Music by Prince Albert at the World Music Awards. She was also presented the Lena Horne Lifetime Achievement Award by Maya Angelou at the Lady Soul Train Awards. APLA awarded Jackson for her involvement in AIDS organizations, also receiving a GLAAD Award for "Outstanding Music". VH1 ranked her among "Hollywood's 16 Hottest Celesbians" due to the album's homoerotic content. The Velvet Rope was later included among Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Commercial performance The Velvet Rope debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 202,000 copies in its first week. It fell to number two in its second week. It sold four million copies globally within its first several months of release, and 1.6 million copies in the US in 1998. On November 11, the album was certified gold and platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting 1,000,000 units sold. It was certified double platinum the following year, and triple platinum on January 15, 1999. It sold an additional 420,000 copies through BMG Music