Entertainment Weekly, she "drips over them like syrup instead of overpowering them; she lets the melodies speak for themselves." Dennis Hunt was particularly critical in the Los Angeles Times, writing that Carey's pop-soul songs still lacked emotion even though she had "toned down her vocal showboating". He accused Music Box of being geared toward an adult contemporary audience that "likes its soul whitewashed and in small doses". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau labeled it a "dud", indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought". In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Ron Wynn deemed Music Box "partly successful" and believed it was smart of Carey to explore her vocal approach differently, but she ended up sounding "detached on several selections". With the exception "Hero" and "Dreamlover", the other songs lacked her usual "personality and intensity", according to Wynn. Q was more impressed by the record, writing that "this 1993 celebration of the all-conquering power of love was her defining moment". Accolades Commercial performance North America Music Box entered the US Billboard 200 at number two, with 174,000 copies sold, becoming Carey's fourth consecutive top-ten album in the country. In its fifteenth week after release, the album topped the chart and enjoyed its highest sales week in December, selling 295,000 copies in its first week atop, 395,000 the following week and peaking with 505,000 copies sold in year's final week. It stayed at the top for eight non-consecutive weeks. It remained in the top ten for thirty-one weeks and on the Billboard 200 for 128 weeks (more than two years, longer than any other of her albums), re-entering the chart three times. The album also reached number one on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Music Box was the second-best selling album in the United States in 1994, only behind Ace of Base's The Sign. In the United States, Music Box became Carey's best-selling album at the time, being certified Diamond by the RIAA, denoting shipments of ten million copies. The album also became a success in Canada, peaking at number two on the charts and being certified seven-times Platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA). Other markets Music Box became Carey's best-seller in Europe, topping the charts in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In Germany, it became her highest-charting album, spending eighty weeks on the German Albums Chart, eleven