Honey came in and she caught me red-handed, creepin' with the girl next door

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

01/07/01 : Hot Shot - Shaggy


Well, I guess it's got to be better than D12, hasn't it?

Actually, this is surprisingly bearable with considerably more variety on it than I was expecting. It helps that most tracks feature guest artists who often do a lot more of the singing than Shaggy does, whose vocal abilities would be generously described as one note ("no note" would actually be closer). But he knows how to put a tune together and the presence of the annpyingly catchy "It Wasn't Me" also very much helps things (and it's mostly sung by RikRok, with Shaggy really only contributing the title - repeatedly). I wouldn't go as far as saying I liked this album, but it comfortably exceeded expectations.

We're at #3 in the charts this week on his 21st week of an impressive 49 week run with it having peaked at #1 in its 17th week in the middle of a ten week run in the top five (and if you don't know what was responsible for that, then I'll just tell you it wasn't me). The rest of the top five were Travis, D12, Dido and Basement Jaxx (a new entry), with another new entry in the top ten for Marti Pellow (#7). 

Wikipedia tells us this is his fifth album and although he had some success with previous albums, this was really his breakthrough. And that's pretty much all it's got, so I checked out his entry and found out he started out as a US Marine - and he's done a LOAD of stuff since. Critically, reviews were mixed (1.5 stars in NME) but commercially, this took over the world getting to #1 in Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Portugal and the US. And they absolutely LOVED it in the US - it sold nearly nine million copies and was the second biggest selling album of the year. 

discogs.com tells us this is another fifty pence album but if you want a vinyl copy then it's a different story because there's only one available and it's TWO HUNDRED QUID! OK, OK - I know I said it was surprisingly bearable but I'd struggle to say it's worth fifty pence and it didn't deserve to sell anywhere near as many as it did. But it did and there we are.

08/07/01 - Really not good

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