I look and stare so deep in your eyes

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

03/08/03 : Dangerously In Love - Beyoncé 


Our 5.5th visit with Queen B (the .5 being a Destiny's Child album) - I think it's safe to say that so far I've generally been impressed by the craft involved without loving the results. This era B feels like it stands the strongest chance with me, but we'll see.

Well, she certainly doesn't do herself any harm by starting things off with "Crazy In Love" which even I have to admit I like. And, once again, I'm impressed by the craft involved throughout the rest of the album - she's got a lovely voice with great control and there's more variety there than I was expecting. Yes, it's all some sort of R&B but it covers various forms and uses guest artists wisely including Jay Z (of course), Missy Elliott, Sean Paul and Luther Vandross - for me there was too much of the hip-hop stuff, but each to their own. Did I love it? No, but I think that's just where we are with Queen B and I suspect she can live with it. I also didn't need an hour of it, either but even I have to agree it's a pretty striking album cover.

We're at #2 in the charts this week on her sixth week of a 50 week run, having spent the first five weeks at #1 and it's spent a further 20 weeks in the charts over the years, with it last being seen for a week in '13. The rest of the top five were The Coral (a new entry), Daniel Bedingfield, Stereophonics and Delta Goodrem and the next highest new entry is a somwhat unexpected Yes best-of (#10).

Wikipedia has loads on the album (483 milliPeppers) and I can assure you I didn't bother reading most of it - an awful lot is about all of Destiny's Child releasing their solo albums in a multi-pronged attack on the charts. It's her debut solo album (she's up to eight now and I think it's fair to say they've generally done OK) and allegedly the record company weren't that convinced it should be released at all - which just goes to show that no-one knows anything. 

The critics were nice enough about it, but a few said the first half was much better than the second, which wasn't something that particularly hit me. Whichever half was better, the album cleaned up at the Grammy Awards, taking home five awards and it also did reasonably well commercially, getting to #1 in, amongst others, Canada, Germany, Ireland and the US and it's shifted 11 million units globally. Interestingly, considering it spent five weeks at #1 here, it was only #14 in the year-end list - we've still got some big albums to come this year it appears.

"Customers also listened to" Destiny's Child (who knew?), Usher, Justin Timberlake and Aaliyah - yeah, I guess I can see the link there. I still very much admire Beyoncé but, once again, this is not the album to make me love her.

27/07/03 - A lovely voice
10/08/03 - Quite interesting sounds

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