thudding clichés". "One Sweet Day", "Melt Away", "Always Be My Baby", and "Underneath the Stars" were singled out as highlights, while "Fantasy" featured what Holden described as "some of the most gorgeously spun choral music to be found on a contemporary album". Los Angeles Times journalist Cheo H. Coker said Daydream boasted material that would silence Carey's critics—especially "Fantasy" and "Underneath the Stars"—and offered "something for everybody while somehow remaining true to her essence". People magazine deemed it Carey's best album, benefiting from "funkier and mellower" songs and the singer's improved control over her voice, "evincing greater muscularity and agility". According to Encyclopedia of Popular Music writer Colin Larkin, "some critics questioned whether Daydream was a controlled exercise in vacuous formula writing, with little emotion or heart." Reviewing the album for Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker preferred the "less dignified tunes"—particularly "Daydream Interlude (Fantasy Sweet Dub Mix)"—over the "monuments to assiduous good taste" in "When I Saw You" and "I Am Free", which he panned as overwrought ballads. Tucker nonetheless called it Carey's best album since her 1990 self-titled debut. In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Daydream Carey's "best record to date, featuring a consistently strong selection of songs and a remarkably impassioned performance by Carey." In Erlewine's opinion, the album appealed to both urban R&B and adult contemporary audiences while showing that "Carey continues to perfect her craft, and that she has earned her status as an R&B/pop diva." In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Arion Berger said the album "adheres to the classic radio-friendly diva format, alternating between frisky dance tunes and overscaled ballads". He highlighted the songs contributed by Afanasieff while lamenting Carey's cover of "Open Arms". Accolades Commercial performance In the United States, Daydream debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 224,000 copies sold. The album moved 760,000 copies during the Christmas week of 1995, the largest sales week by a solo female artist until Britney Spears's Oops!... I Did It Again in 2000. Daydream sold at least 90,000 copies a week in the seven months following its release. It was the second best-selling album of 1996, and the eighteenth best-selling album on the 1990s decade in the US. Daydream became Carey's best-selling album in the United States, being certified 11× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of over 11 million copies. In Canada, Daydream