Since there are so many compilations out there that bandy about terms like "number one" and "chart-topper," it seems worth stating at the outset that this 26-track, 79-minute compilation largely lives up to its name: between the first track, a four-second spoken introduction, and the last, a so-called "bonus track" of Michael McDonald's 2003 remake of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (which did achieve a sort of "Number 1" status, reaching number 111!) are 24 songs that hit the pinnacle of the Billboard pop and/or R&B singles charts on Motown Records or one of its subsidiaries between 1961 and 1994. Those songs, by such longtime Motown stars as the Temptations, the Supremes, the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye, are sequenced chronologically, resulting in a mini-history of the label from its tentative beginnings to the consistent hitmaking of the mid-'60s, and on to the antiwar social commentary of the early '70s and the softer pop-oriented sound (read: Lionel Richie) of the '80s. The peak, necessarily, comes with those mid-'60s evergreens, which, more than ever in this context, sound like the work of a single band, the Motown session group now known as the Funk Brothers, fronted by different singers. Within the chronological stricture, compilation producers Jeff Moskow and Harry Weinger manage some clever sequencing and editing. When the famous footsteps that begin the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" appear, marching from one speaker to the other and back, they introduce stereo separation to the album. Next, "Stop! in the Name of Love" is elongated by nine seconds from the original single edit to include an a cappella breakdown that serves as a good segue into the next track, "Shotgun." (Ellen Fitton's digital remastering is also worthy of comment; these recordings never sounded as good as this back in the '60s.) The collection covers such a wide time frame and so many styles that it seems safe to say few buyers will enjoy all the selections equally; a better musical choice might have been to combine on one CD the early material from this disc and the simultaneously released second volume, and combine on another the later material. Of course, there was much more to Motown than this sampling of hits. But those hits kept coming, decade after decade, and Motown Number 1's suggests some of that history of success. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide