Olivia Rodrigo Sour hit #1

Sour Olivia Rodrigo

Released: May 21, 2021 Peak: 15 US, 15 UK, 110 CN, 18 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.6 UK, 4.58 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Brutal (6/5/21, 12 US, 29 AR, 13 CN, 12 AU) Traitor (6/5/21, 9 US, 23 AC, 15 A40, 5 UK, 9 CN, 5 AU) Drivers License (1/8/21, 18 US, 16 RR, 9 AC, 14 A40, 19 UK, 17 CN, 16 AU, 7 DF) 1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back (6/5/21, 19 US, 17 US, 18 AU) Déjà Vu (4/1/21, 3 US, 19 AC) Good 4 U (5/14/21, 11 US, 16 RR, 12 AC, 11 A40, 15 UK, 16 CN, 14 AU, 12 DF) Enough for You (6/5/21, 14 US, 14 CN, 14 AU) Happer (6/5/21, 15 US, 15 CN, 15 AU) Jealousy, Jealousy (6/5/21, 24 US, 36 UK, 21 CN, 22 AU) Favorite Crime (6/5/21, 16 US, 17 UK, 14 CN, 13 AU) Hope Ur Ok (6/5/21, 29 US, 23 CN, 23 AU) Total Running Time: 34:41

Rating: 4.077 out of 5.00 (average of 33 ratings) Quotable: “A collection of polished, precociously accomplished pop that doubles as one of the most gratifyingly undignified breakup albums ever made.” – Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: At the beginning of January 2021, Olivia Rodrigo “was playing in the celebrity minor leagues, the not-quite-18-year-old star of the Disney+ show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” PF By month’s end, she “had smashed streaming records and blanketed TikTok with her debut single, Drivers License, a piano-driven power ballad steeped in suburban malaise and teen anguish,” PF “written among the ruins of first love.” GN It had the biggest first week for any song ever on Spotify and went on to reach 100 million streams faster than any song in history. GN It debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent eight weeks at the pinnacle. The magazine called it “one of the most dominant number-one songs of the last 30 years” WK and, at year’s end, named it the song of the year. The song also landed Grammy nominations for Song and Record of the Year and won for Best Pop Solo Performance. Rodrigo also proved to be a commercial and critical juggernaut beyond “Drivers License.” The follow-up singles, Déjà Vu and Good 4 U, debuted at #8 and #1 respectively, making Rodrigo the first artist in history to have her first three chart entries debut in the top ten. WK Those three singles preceded the release of Sour, setting it up for the biggest opening week on Spotify for a female artist. WK It topped the album chart and was named album of the year by Billboard and Rolling Stone. It also won the Juno International Album of the Year award and got Grammy attention, securing a nod for Best Album and a win for Best Pop Vocal Album. She also took home the coveted Best New Artist prize. Rodrigo said the album title referred to the “emotions young people experience but are often criticized for, such as anger, jealousy, and unhappiness.” WK “Writing a whole album about how furious and devastated you are that your ex has forgotten you seems like the sort of thing any good friend would strongly advise against,” GN but Sour is “a nimble and lightly chaotic grab bag of breakup tunes, filled with both melancholy and mischief.” PF She does it all without resorting to “the meaningless word salad that popstars often hide behind.” GN She uses the “angsty and uptempo” WK Brutal “to rattle off her grievances: self-doubt, impossible expectations, her inability to parallel park.” PF The “sweet-and-sour ballad Happier” PF features “lyrics admitting selfishness and exuding self-criticism” WK as “she grapples with the faulty narrative of female rivalry.” PF Traitor is “an indie pop ballad with a folk instrumental” WK and lyrics about “post-grief anger and bargaining.” WK Enough for You is “a minimal bedroom pop song” WK about being “very insecure and vulnerable.” WK Favorite Crime is an indie pop song with a “thinly veiled Bonnie and Clyde-type metaphor.” WK “Like any teenager, Rodrigo is trying on identities.” PF She said, “My dream is to have it be an intersection between mainstream pop, folk music, and alternative pop.” WK “Brutal” is “anthemic 90s alt-rock…in the vein of the Breeders ‘Cannonball.’” GN On “Good 4 U” one “might hear pop punk fireworks à la Paramore” PF while 1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back offers “dewy-eyed soft balladry à la Ingrid Michaelson” PF and Jealousy, Jealousy serves up “alt-rock squall à la the Kills.” PF Rodrigo has cited Alanis Morissette, Kacey Musgraves, No Doubt, and the White Stripes as influences WK but has “most obviously styled herself after Taylor Swift.” PF She “treats emotional turmoil like jet fuel, and laces her lyrics with specifics – a Billy Joel song she and her ex listened to together, the self-help books she read to impress him.” PF “1 Step Forward” interpolates Swift’s “New Year’s Day” PF and “Déjà Vu” was inspired by Swifty’s “Cruel Summer.” On Hope Ur Ok, Rodrigo “steps away from…self-referential narratives to secondhand stories from her friends.” WK “Over a twinkly instrumental, Rodrigo sings directly to a victim of child abuse, a queer girl rejected by her family, and to outcasts more broadly.” PF “It reads as a last-minute effort to demonstrate perspective and maturity.” PF “It’s as close to a palate cleanser as a song with such a cloying sentiment can get, but thankfully doesn’t overshadow the glorious myopia of Sour.” GN

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Olivia Rodrigo GN The Guardian review by Rachel Aroesti (5/21/2021) PF Pitchfork WK Wikipedia First posted 2/17/2023.

Billie Eilish wins Grammy for Album of the Year

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Billie Eilish

Released: March 29, 2019 Peak: 13 US, 5 UK, 11 CN, 11 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.3 UK, 4.51 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop/alternative

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. !!!!!!! (79 CN) Bad Guy (3/29/19, 11 US, 6 A40, 34 AA, 12 MR, 2 UK, 11 CN, 12 AU, worldwide sales: 19.5 million) Xanny (4/13/19, 35 US, 26 CN, 10 AU, worldwide sales: 1.2 million) You Should See Me in a Crown (7/18/18, 41 US, 7 MR, 60 UK, 27 CN, 16 AU, worldwide sales: 2.43 million) All the Good Girls Go to Hell (4/13/19, 46 US, 5 MR, 77 UK, 19 CN, 8 AU, worldwide sales: 1.2 million) Wish You Were Gay (1/30/19, 31 US, 13 UK, 12 CN, 5 AU, worldwide sales: 1.31 million) When the Party’s Over (10/17/18, 29 US, worldwide sales: 5.06 million) 8 (4/13/19, 79 US, 52 CN, 35 AU, sales: ½ million) My Strange Addiction (4/13/19, 43 US, 21 CN, 12 AU, worldwide sales: 1.2 million) Bury a Friend (1/9/19, 14 US, 12 MR, 6 UK, 10 CN, 3 AU, worldwide sales: 3.98 million) Ilomilo (4/13/19, 62 US, 25 MR, 38 CN, 23 AU, worldwide sales: ½ million) Listen Before I Go (4/13/19, 63 US, worldwide sales: 0.7 million) I Love You (4/13/19, 53 US, 35 CN, 20 AU, worldwide sales: 1.2 million) Goodbye (69 CN, 54 AU) Total Running Time: 42:56

Rating: 3.910 out of 5.00 (average of 28 ratings) Quotable: “No teenager I can recall has ever made such an impressive album.” – music critic Robert Christgau Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Billie Eilish became a teen folk hero with her blockbuster debut — just your average 17-year-old songwriting prodigy with a head full of nightmares.” RS’20 She became the youngest artist in history to receive nominations for the Big Four Grammys. At the 2020 ceremony, she became only the second artist (after Christopher Cross) to win them all – Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year (both for “Bad Guy”), and Album of the Year. She also won Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Engineered Album. By this time, she was eighteen, but still the youngest to ever take home the prizes for Record of the Year and Album of the Year. LeAnn Rimes was 14 when she won Best New Artist and Lorde was 17 when she landed Song of the Year for “Royals.” Eilish had already released an EP, but When We All Fall Asleep was her official debut album. It debuted at #1 in the U.S. and UK. She became the youngest solo female act ever to top the charts in the United Kingdom. WK Critic Robert Christgau said, “No teenager I can recall has ever made such an impressive album.” WK She “makes a bold entrance into the mainstream, leaving the fringes behind to embrace her role as an anti-pop star for the disaffected Gen Z masses.” AMG She has said the record, which explores climate change, drug addiction, heartbreak, mental health, and suicide, was inspired by lucid dreams and night terrors. WK Eilish largely co-wrote the album with her brother Finneas O’Connell, who produced it from his bedroom studio in the house where they grew up. His production focused on amplified bass, minimalist percussion, and acoustic sounds. Musically, it has been described as “a youthful, hybrid blend that incorporates elements of indie electronic, pop, and hip-hop.” AMG Exclaim!’s Matt Bobkin said the album displayed “a bold artistic vision and a willingness to move beyond the boundaries of pop conventions.” WK Critics described her vocal style “as soft and whispered;” WK The Daily Telegraph’s Neil McCormick said she could “shift from coquettish to threatening, playfully ironic to emotionally sincere in a breath.” WK He said she “sounds modern and old fashioned at the same time.” WK “Like Lorde’s devilish little sister, Eilish delivers her confessional lyrics in hushed bursts of breath, at times dirge-like in their sedateness and otherwise intensely threatening in their creepiness.” AMG Intro/“Bad Guy” The album kicks off with !!!!!!!, a thirty-second “intro in which Eilish slurps saliva from her Invisalign aligners and announces that ‘this is the album,’ before she and her brother descend into laughter.” WK She follows that with “the whispery trap-pop strut of Bad Guy,” RS’20 using “a bass, a kick-drum and amplified finger snaps.” WK Lyrically, she taunts her partner and suggests she is the “bad guy” and not him. The worldwide #1 hit – the fifth single from the album – was released simultaneously with When We All Fall Asleep. “Xanny” Xanny was inspired by a party where Eilish’s friends were drinking and throwing up and becoming “completely not who they were.” WK It was built around “a jazz-inspired loop in order to replicate the feeling of being ‘in secondhand smoke.’” WK “You Should See Me in a Crown” The “trap-influenced electropop song” WK was inspired by an episode of the BBC TV series Sherlock. Eilish sings over “blaring synths and rapid-fire hi-hats.” WK It was the first single, preceding the release of the album by six months. “All the Good Girls Go to Hell” Stereogum described this as a “punchy piano number” and one of the album’s “poppiest tracks.” WK It explores the notion that God and the Devil are observing humans as a meek group of people and pondering, “What are they trying to do here?” WK “Wish You Were Gay”/“When the Party’s Over” On this “jazzy classic pop song” WK Eilish sings about a man she likes who doesn’t show romantic interest in her. She wishes that he was gay so that it would explain his lack of interest in her. WK In a different vein, the “piano ballad” When the Party’s Over was written when her brother left his date’s house “kind of for no reason.” WK Both songs were top-40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. “8”/“My Strange Addiction” The album’s eighth song, appropriately titled 8, “is a ukulele-based lullaby which manipulates Eilish's vocals to make her sound like a small child.” WK the bass-heavy My Strange Addiction follows. She got approval from Steve Carrell, B.J. Novak, John Krasinski, and Mindy Kaling to use samples of their voices as featured in the “Threat Level Midnight” episode of the TV sitcom The Office. “Bury a Friend”/“Ilomilo” This was the second-highest charting song from the album, reaching #14. Eilish wrote this tale of “gothic angst” RS’20 from the perspective of what a monster under a bed feels. Musically, the “minimalist electronica and industrial song” WK contains a vocal line resembling the Doors’ “People Are Strange” and a beat similar to Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead.” WK The beat from the song “leads seamlessly into…Ilomilo, an electropop cut named after the 2010 video game.” WK “Listen Before I Go”/“I Love You”/“Goodbye” Finneas explained that the songs are related because they express “different sentiments about a farwell.” WK Eilish sings Listen Before I Go from the perspective of someone about to commit suicide. Eilish said I Love You, whose chorus has drawn comparisons to “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, was about how “it sucks to be in love sometimes.” WK Goodbye features lines from each of the other songs on the album, except for the intro. Conclusion In the end, this is a remarkable beginning for such a young artist. “She’s a highly relatable kid – not yet of legal voting age at the time of the album’s release – and an avatar for an audience that deals with similar mental health struggles and growing pains.” AMG Notes: The Japanese edition added the tracks “Come Out and Play” and “When I Was Older.” A Japanese limited deluxe edition also added a remix of “Bad Guy” with Justin Bieber and a Japanese complete edition included “Everything I Wanted” as well. A reissue from Target added “When I Was Older,” Bitches Broken Hearts,” and “Everything I Wanted.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Billie Eilish AMG All Music Guide review by Neil Z. Yeung RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia First posted 12/12/2020; last updated 4/25/2022.

Post Malone Hollywood’s Bleeding hit #1

Hollywood’s Bleeding Post Malone

Released: September 6, 2019 Peak: 15 US, 17 RB, 11 UK, 19 CN, 16 AU Sales (in millions): 4.0 US, 0.3 UK, 16.25 world (includes US and UK) Genre: rap

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Hollywood’s Bleeding (9/21/19, 15 BB, 11 UK, 12 CN, 17 AU) Saint-Tropez (9/21/19, 18 BB, 10 RB, 52 UK, 10 CN, 19 AU) Enemies (with DaBaby) (9/17/19, 16 BB, 9 RB, 15 CN, 28 AU) Allergic (9/21/19, 37 BB, 33 MR, 39 CN, 45 AU) A Thousand Bad Times (9/21/19, 29 BB, 29 CN, 39 AU) Circles (8/30/19, 13 BB, 111 BA, 11 DG, 17 RR, 14 A40, 23 MR, 3 UK, 2 CN, 2 AU, 3 DF) Die for Me (with Future & Halsey) (9/21/19, 20 BB, 11 RB, 21 CN, 23 AU) On the Road (with Meek Mill & Lil Baby) (9/21/19, 22 BB, 13 RB, 22 CN, 35 AU) Take What You Want (with Ozzy Osbourne & Travis Scott) (10/15/19, 8 BB, 28 AR, 22 UK, 8 CN, 30 AU) I’m Gonna Be (9/21/19, 33 BB, 35 CN, 54 AU) Staring at the Sun (with SZA) (9/21/19, 34 BB, 38 CN, 48 AU) Sunflower (with Swae Lee) (10/18/18, 11 BB, 13 DG, 13 ST, 29 A40, 19 RB, 3 UK, 12 CN, 13 AU, 26 DF) Internet (9/21/19, 58 BB, 25 RB, 53 CN, 77 AU) Goodbyes (with Young Thug) (7/5/19, 3 BB, 30 A40, 2 RB, 5 UK, 5 CN, 5 AU) Myself (9/21/19, 52 BB, 47 CN, 71 AU) I Know (9/21/19, 53 BB, 24 RB, 52 CN, 76 AU) Wow. (12/24/18, 2 BB, 11 RR, 11 RB, 3 UK, 3 CN, 2 AU) Total Running Time: 50:56

Rating: 4.072 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Rap singer/songwriter Post Malone was born Austin Richard Post in 1995 in Syracuse, New York. His first chart entry, “White Iverson” in 2015, was certified diamond and reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album, 2016’s Stoney followed. It reached #4 on the Billboard album chart and was certified five times platinum. His follow-up, 2018’s Beerbongs & Bentleys, hit #1 and was also certified five times platinum. It featured the #1 hits “Rockstar” and “Psycho.” That same year, Post Malone would reach #1 a third time with Sunflower. The twenty-times platinum single was first featured in the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but would also show up on his third studio album, Hollywood’s Bleeding. The video was played more than two billion times on YouTube. The first official single from the album was “the fine-tuned hip-hop gem” AMG Wow. (#2, eight-times platinum). It was followed by Goodbyes (#3, three-times platinum), and Circles, on which he allows “his signature vocal trill to soar.” AMG The latter was Post Malone’s fourth #1 and was certified ten-times platinum. It was nominated for Grammys for Record and Song of the Year. He also set a record for most weeks (34) in the top 10 with “Circles.” Those three songs and “Sunflower” all reached one billion streams on Spotify. All of the songs from Hollywood’s Bleeding reached the Billboard Hot 100, maintaining a trend of music’s most successful artists accomplishing that feat when a new album was dropped during the age of streaming. Enemies, Allergic, and Take What You Want were released as official singles. The latter, featuring “haunting vocals” AMG from heavy-metal superstar Ozzy Osbourne, was Post Malone’s fifth top-ten hit from the Hollywood’s Bleeding album. NME’s Danny Wright said “Post Malone is the post everything star the kids have called for, a musician made for the internet-age; a goofball chameleon instinctively skilled at understanding the ways gneres can merge together.” WK Conseqeunce’s Dan Weiss called it Malone’s “most listenable work,” WK saying it “may well be the catchiest album you hear in 2019.” WK AllMusic.com’s Neil Z. Yeung said Post’s “basic hip-hop/rock sound and sad guy image are still at the fore” AMG but “he strikes a more well-honed balance…leaning less on the overly dark trap tones and reluctant-star posturing of past works.” AMG He adds that “there’s nary a dud to be found” AMG on the album which “pushes [Malone] even further into the pop-savvy landscape where he belongs.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music album review by Neil Z. Yeung WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/13/2024.

Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream album hit #1 50 years ago today

First posted 3/25/2008; updated 9/6/2020.

Whipped Cream & Other Delights Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

Buy Here:

Charted: May 15, 1965 Peak: 18 US, 2 UK, -- CN, -- AU Sales (in millions): 5.0 US, -- UK, 5.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: traditional pop

Tracks: (Click for codes to singles charts.) Song Title (Writers) [Time] (chart date, peaks on charts) A Taste of Honey (Bobby Scott, Rick Marlow) [2:43] (9/4/65, #7 US, #1 AC) Green Peppers (Sol Lake) [1:31] Tangerine (Johnny Mercer, Victor Schertzinger) [2:46] Bittersweet Samba (Sol Lake) [1:46] Lemon Tree (Will Holt) [2:23] Whipped Cream (Naomi Neville) [2:33] (2/20/65, #68 US, #13 AC) Love Potion No. 9 (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller) [3:02] El Garbanzo (Sol Lake) [2:13] Ladyfingers (Toots Thielemans) [2:43] Butterball (Mike Henderson) [2:12] Peanuts (Luis Guerrero) [2:09] Lollipops and Roses (Tony Velona) [2:27] Total Running Time: 28:22

Rating: 4.275 out of 5.00 (average of 11 ratings) Awards:

About the Album: “It’ll never be known exactly what made Whipped Cream & Other Delights Herb Alpert’s big commercial breakthrough – the music or the LP jacket’s luscious nude model covered almost entirely with simulated whipped cream. Probably both.” AMG “In any case, Alpert’s most famous album is built around a coherent concept; every song has a title with food in it. Within this concept, Alpert’s musical tastes are still refreshingly eclectic; he uses Brazilian rhythms on Green Peppers and Bittersweet Samba, reaches back to the big-band era for the haunting Tangerine, uses Dixieland jazz on Butterball, and goes to New Orleans for the Allen Toussaint-penned title track (familiar to viewers of TV’s The Dating Game).” AMG “He also has developed a unique sense of timing as a producer, using pauses for humorous effect, managing to score his second Top Ten hit with a complex, tempo-shifting version of A Taste of Honey.” AMG “No wonder Alpert drew such a large, diverse audience at his peak; his choices of tunes spanned eras and generations, while his arrangements were energetic enough for the young and melodic enough for older listeners.” AMG Notes: A 2005 reissue added bonus tracks “Rosemary” and “Blueberry Park.”

Resources and Related Links: Herb Alpert’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry AMG Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide

Usher debuted at #1 with Confessions

Confessions Usher

Released: March 23, 2004 Charted: April 10, 2004 Peak: 19 US, 111 RB, 11 UK, 11 CN, 2 AU Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 1.2 UK, 20.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: R&B

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Intro Yeah! (with Lil’ Jon & Ludacris) (1/3/04, 1 US, 1 UK, 1 RB, platinum single) Throwback (2/5/05, 36 RB) Confessions (Interlude) Confessions Part II (4/10/04, 1 US, 5 UK, 1 RB, gold single) Burn (3/13/04, 1 US, 1 UK, 1 RB, platinum single) Caught Up (8/28/04, 8 US, 9 UK, 13 RB) Superstar (Interlude) Superstar Truth Hurts Simple Things Bad Girl That’s What It’s Made For (12/25/04, 59 RB) Can U Handle It? Do It to Me Take Your Hand Follow Me My Boo (with Alicia Keys) (9/4/04, 1 US, 1 RB, platinum single) * Red Light Seduction (2/19/05, 68 RB) * Confessions Part II (remix with Shyne, Kanye West, and Twista) * Added to the expanded edition of the album. Total Running Time: 60:30

Rating: 3.921 out of 5.00 (average of 25 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Usher was already a star in 2004, a sly singer and slick dancer whose R&B hits found a home with pop fans.” RS’20 This was Usher’s fourth album, following two multi-platinum, top-5 outings which produced six songs to peak in the top 3. However, Confessions took Usher to a new level. It sold more than a million copies in its first week, debuted at the pinnacle, spent nine weeks there, and generated four #1 songs – plus a fifth top-10 hit. It ended up as the second-best selling album of the 2000s behind Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP, WK “one of the last 10-million-plus sellers ever made.” RS’20 It ”turned him into an unstoppable juggernaut. Usher worked with a murderers’ row of R&B and hip-hop talent, from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to Jermaine Dupri to Just Blaze; the album moves easily from club wreckers like the Lil Jon- and Ludacris-assisted smash ‘Yeah!’ to forgive-me-for-cheating ballads to love-you-forever duets.” RS’20 The lead-off single, Yeah!, with its “crunk-meets-R&B foundation” AMG is the “only club track” AMG on the album. Its “instantly addictive eight-note keyboard vamp” AMG was “one of Usher’s most muscular turns [and] is so absorbing that Ludacris’ 1500th guest verse floats by with little notice.” AMG The song was definitely noticed, spending 12 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and being named the song of the year by the magazine. Overall, Usher felt this was “his most personal record to date.” WK Chart-toppers Burn and Confessions Part II dealt respectively with the winding down of Usher’s two-year relationship with TLC’s Chilli Thomas and the concept of an impregnated mistress. WK There was also a conscious effort to showcase Usher’s new talents. Songs like Superstar and Follow demonstrated Usher in “crooner mode” WK and “the ballad-oriented ‘Burn’ also showcases his vocal aptitute.” WK That song and “the upbeat Caught Up…rate as some of the vocalist’s best moments yet.” AMG “Throwback, produced by Just Blaze, sounds like it was made for the sole purpose of trailing Alicia Keys’ ‘You Don't Know My Name.’ Like that hit, ‘Throwback’s sensitively treated soul sample provides a nostalgic tint that complements the wistful, regret-filled tone of the lyrics.” AMG “A small batch of Jam & Lewis productions, including the effortlessly gliding Truth Hurts, continue to help raise Usher's loverman stock.” AMG “Confessions’ most detracting factor is its length. At an hour in duration, it could be stripped of five songs and be far more powerful, especially since no one would have to do any wading to get to the meaty parts.” AMG Instead, the album was released as a special edition which made the album even longer. Notes: A special edition of Confessions was released which added My Boo, Red Light, Seduction, and an alternate version of Confessions Part II that featured Kanye West, Shyne, and Twista.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Usher AMG All Music Guide review by Andy Kellman RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia First posted 3/25/2008; last updated 4/27/2022.