Peter Robinson of "The Observer" stated that Spears "delivered the best album of her career, raising the bar for modern pop music with an incendiary mix of Timbaland's "Shock Value" and her own back catalogue." "The Phoenix"s Ellee Dean said the album "may be more a tribute to the skills of the A-list producers who guided her through the disc than to any of her own talents. But at least she was smart enough to accept that guidance." In his consumer guide for MSN Music, critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ and said that "From 'Gimme More's 'It's Britney bitch' hiya to 'Piece of Me's single-of-the-year sonics, from 'Ooh Ooh Baby's 'feel you deep inside' to 'Perfect Lover's 'touch me there', this album is pure, juicy, plastic get-naked." In a retrospective review published in 2017, Alim Kheraj of "Dazed" called "Blackout" "one of the most inventive pop records in recent history", the record that "forevermore proved that career was way more than just an “inept pantomime”[." Kheraj also said that the album "was the result of a hazardous moment in pop culture history that saw a serendipitous and symbiotic relationship between an artist eroding her past and producers forging their future that payed off." "Blackout" was ranked by "Rolling Stone" at number fifty on their list of the 100 Best Albums of 2007. The album topped "Billboard"s Reader's Choice poll as the best album of the year. In 2020, the album was listed at number 441 on "Rolling Stone"s updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.