50 Cent “Candy Shop” hit #1

Candy Shop 50 Cent with Olivia

Writer(s): Curtis Jackson, Scott Storch (see lyrics here) Released: February 8, 2005 First Charted: January 29, 2005 Peak: 19 BB, 17 BA, 18 DG, 5 RR, 14 RB, 4 UK, 7 CN, 3 AU, 26 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 6.9 US, 1.2 UK, 9.41 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.3 radio, 1368.03 video, 1253.82 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Rapper Curtis James Jackson III (aka “50 Cent”) was bon in 1975 in Queens, New York. He recorded his first album, Power of the Dollar, in 1999 and 2000, but was dropped by his label when he was shot nine times. His 2002 mixtape Guess Who’s Back? caught the attention of Eminem, who signed 50 Cent to his label Shady Records. His 2003 album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was a monstrous success, selling nine million copies in the U.S. and spawning the #1 hits “In Da Club” and “21 Questions.” On Get Rich, “50 depicted himself as a cold-blooded warrior-prince who still knew how to write a hook, and the album was so focused and intense that even its big hits mostly didn’t sound like pop-radio pander-moves.” SG On the follow-up, 2005’s The Massacre, “50 was happy to make the cheesiest shit in the world if he thought that it would sell.” SG It did – nine million copies worldwide – on the strength of four top-10 songs. The most successful of the singles was “Candy Shop,” the third chart-topper for 50 Cent. He made the song “as pure radio-bait, and he didn’t even bother to attempt to sell the song as anything bigger than that.” SG He said, “I attempted to be as sexual as possible, from a male perspective, without being vulgar or obscene.” SG “Thinly veiled sexual connotations” TB with lines like “melts in your mouth, not in your hand” met with “widespread parental disapproval.” SG “The song is about sex, but it’s never sexy.” SG “50 sounds utterly checked out.” SG 50 Cent wrote the song with Scott Storch, who’d just had a #1 writing credit on Mario’s “Let Me Love You” a couple of months earlier. “Candy Shop” featured “a sickly strings-and-xylophones fanfare that was sampled, uncredited, from Salsoul Orchestra’s 1983 dance jam ‘Ooh, I Love It (Love Break).’” SG The song featured Olivia Longott, a Brooklyn-born R&B singer. “She just kind of deadpans half of the hook.” SG It was her biggest moment in the spotlight. She’d originally signed to Clive Davis’ J Records as a teenager but only released one album. Resources: SG Stereogum (12/21/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Pages 312-13. Related Links: First posted 1/27/2026.

Mario “Let Me Love You” hit #1

Let Me Love You Mario

Writer(s): Scott Storch, Kameron Houff, Shaffer Smith (see lyrics here) Released: October 4, 2004 First Charted: October 9, 2004 Peak: 19 BB, 111 BA, 14 RR, 111 RB, 2 UK, 1 CN, 3 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.50 US, 2.40 UK, 4.95 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.50 radio, 709.0 video, 1362.77 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: R&B singer/songwriter Mario Dewar Barrett was born in 1986 in Baltimore. He was raised primarily by his grandmother because his single mom struggle with heroin addiction. However, Mom did buy him a karaoke machine when he said he wanted to be a singer. He got his shot at 11 years old when he sang Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You” at a talent show at Coppin State College. Troy Paterson, a music manager, signed him as a client, adopted him, and moved him to New Jersey. At 14 years old, Clive Davis signed him to J Records. SG He released his debut album, Mario, in 2002. It featured a remake of Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend” which hit #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. He found even bigger success with “Let Me Love You,” “a softly aching unrequited-love ballad” SG from his 2004 sophomore album Turning Point. “Let Me Love You” is a classic song in which the narrator pines for a woman who’s with someone else. The song features “a mechanized melodic backbeat with sturdy, clap-heavy drum track and some lost, wandering '80s-style synth-pillows. The arrangement isn’t dramatic, but it gets the job done. Over that beat, Mario sounds crushed, like he knows that he’s already lost. Mario doesn’t sound like Michael Jackson or anything, but he does sound like a kid who’s listened to a lot of Michael Jackson. There’s at least a bit of that fluidity in his delivery.” SG The chorus is”a sneaky little earworm that’ll rattle around in your mind for a while if you let it in there…The song is clearly the work of professionals. It’s not adventurous. It's not evocative. It’s definitely not exciting. But it’s got an easy warmth that's hard to dislike.” SG The song was co-written by Scott Storch and Kameron Houff, who were members of an R&B group called Madd Crop in the early ‘90s. The song’s third writer was Shaffer Smith, who later had his own successful career under the name Ne-Yo, landing twelve top-10 hits, including the #1 songs “So Sick” and “Give Me Eveything.” Resources: SG Stereogum (12/19/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 1/26/2026.