To The Extreme - Reception

Reception

To the Extreme became the fastest selling hip hop album of all time, peaking at #1 on the Billboard 200. The album spent 16 weeks at the top of the charts, and seven million copies were shipped across the United States. To the Extreme was the best selling hip hop album up until that time. "Ice Ice Baby" has been credited for helping diversify hip hop by introducing it to a mainstream, white audience.

Reviews of To the Extreme were mixed. Entertainment Weekly reviewer Dom Lombardo gave the album a B, calling the album "so consistent in its borrowings that it could be a parody, if it weren't for its total absence of wit", but concluding that "if there's about a two-to-one ratio of winners to clunkers, that's not the worst track record for a debut album." Udovitch cited "Ice Ice Baby", "Play That Funky Music", "Dancin'" and "It's a Party" as the album's highlights. Robert Christgau gave the album a C- rating, writing that Van Winkle's "suave sexism, fashionably male supremacist rather than dangerously obscene, is no worse than his suave beats". Allmusic reviewer Steve Huey wrote that "Ice's mic technique is actually stronger and more nimble than MC Hammer's, and he really tries earnestly to show off the skills he does have. Unfortunately, even if he can keep a mid-tempo pace, his flow is rhythmically stiff, and his voice has an odd timbre; plus, he never seems sure of the proper accent to adopt. He's able to overcome those flaws somewhat in isolated moments, but they become all too apparent over the course of an entire album."

After audiences began to view Van Winkle as a novelty act, his popularity began to decline. Van Winkle would later regain some success, attracting a new audience outside of the mainstream audience that had formerly accepted him, and then rejected him.