There’s no question that the 90’s was the golden era for R&B music. However, the 2000’s wasn’t too bad for the genre either. In fact, R&B artists were still selling a lot of records and landing high positions on the Billboard chart.
Let’s go ten years back to 2006. It was clearly the year for R&B/pop. Beyonce’s B’Day era was slaying the game. Her song “Check On It” held the number one spot on the Billboard 100 for five weeks. Later that year, her breakup anthem “Irreplaceable” spent three weeks at number one. B’Day was the top-selling R&B album by a female with 2,010,311 sold in the U.S.
Beyoncé wasn’t the artist from Destiny’s Child doing big things, though. Former member LeToya Luckett made her solo debut with her self-titled album, which charted at number one on the Billboard 200.
Ciara was also dominating that year. She released her critically acclaimed album Ciara: The Evolution, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with over 300,000 copies sold in the first week.
Meanwhile, on the men’s side, Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds dominated the charts and was the top-selling R&B/pop album by a male with 2,377,127 sold. Ne-Yo, who was a newbie at the time, also scored a number one single with “So Sick” from his number one album In My Own Words.
Rated R&B has compiled a list 33 R&B/soul albums that will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year.
Heather Headley
In My Mind
Jan. 31, 2006
