According to Jon O'Brien of AllMusic, 12" Masters – The Essential Mixes will "at the very least bump up his sparse back catalog", suggesting that it will satisfy his "army of fans" that are desperate for new music.[2] He noted that remix albums are "notoriously hard to pull off", as they have the tendency to "smother the original" in "generic pounding beats" and "repetitive synths", which leads to the concept's downfall.[2] O'Brien wrote that: "Luckily, Essential Mixes, one of a series of a 2010 releases that has also tackled the works of Kylie Minogue, Usher, and Avril Lavigne, features a consistently stellar lineup of hotshot and well-respected producers who are a cut above the copy-and-paste merchants usually wheeled out for these types of affairs."[2] He concluded that, while the album "doesn't always do justice to the consistently brilliant source material", it is an "intriguing stopgap" that shows Timberlake's sound is "capable of translating to the Ibiza dance scene as well as the U.S. R&B clubs".[2]
