positive attitude of Love & Life creates a "distance that holds the album back from being one of her best [...] at least half a dozen cuts will vie for slots on a future best-of". Rolling Stone writer Ernest Hardy believed that with Love & Life, Blige "solidifies her standing as the hood Oprah, offering songs of faith and affirmation [...] Her lyrics are confessional, with scant use of metaphor or simile, and little of the creative risk-taking of poetry – the point with Blige is relating, not memorable tunes." Michael Paoletta from Billboard found the album "spirited, if uneven", and noted that it was "home to funky sensations, hip-hop attitude, and loved-up lyrics". Vibe editor Dimitri Ehrlich wrote that on Blige's "sixth studio album, it's the songs of sadness and anger that work best." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau argued that the album's "selling point is a reborn P. Diddy overseeing a catchy set husbanded by many co-producers. It peaks in the middle, and ... ends stronger than No More Drama. Up against What's the 411? Mary sounds older yet still girlish, rounder and smoother and pitch-improved but praise Shirley Brown not perfect yet." Neil Drumming was more critical in Entertainment Weekly, focusing on the abundance of melancholy-heavy ballads and Combs' decision to rely on heavy sampling for most tracks, which he called "shallow, trebly echoes of their former selves". "Despite her signature heartache-inducing voice", Blige could not "save Love & Life from her heavy-handed songwriting", Drumming wrote, finding the lyrics "soggy with relationships" and lacking subtlety. Jonah Weiner of Blender commented that "practically every song sounds as though we've heard it before – because, well, we have". Q panned the record as mostly "a procession of syrupy ballads with added self-help litanies". Commercial performance In the United States, Love & Life debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling 285,298 copies in first week. It became Blige's second number-one album on the chart, following 1997's Share My World. The album also opened at the top spot on Billboards R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, marking Blige's sixth consecutive album to top the latter chart. MTV News noted that this feat lifted Blige "among music's most consistent artists on the albums chart," since from "her last four albums, three debuted in the top two slots, and the fourth took number nine. All of Blige's three most recent releases