Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.
As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.
So with that, let’s get started.
Ciara Princess Harris was born in Austin, Texas, on October 25, 1985. Due to her parents being in the military she moved around a lot as kid, living in Germany, New York, Utah, California, Arizona, and Nevada before settling in Atlanta for high school. Ciara fell in love with music when she saw a Destiny’s Child concert at the age of 13. She immediately fell in love with the group and decided that this was what she wanted to do with her life. Fortunately, Atlanta was the center of urban music talent at a time, which played nicely to Ciara’s songwriting talent. Ciara joined a girl group, Hearsay, but it didn’t last for long. This gave her time to work on her songwriting. Thanks to her pure talent, she met a prominent Atlanta producer, and got signed to a record deal after graduating high school. She began production on her debut album later that year. In early 2004, she got linked up with Lil Jon and the two co-wrote her debut single, Goodies, which was released ahead of her album and her hype surrounding the album. Ciara released her debut album, also titled Goodies on September 28, 2004. The album was a critical and commercial success, selling 3 million copies and was nominated for three Grammy’s. It spawned a number one hit (Goodies), and two number two hits (1,2 Step, Oh). In 2005 she made guest appearances on Missy Elliott’s single Lose Control and on Bow Wow’s Like You, which both peaked at number three on the charts. In December 2006 Ciara released her second album, Ciara: The Evolution. It spawned a top ten (Get Up), a top 12 (Promise), and top 20 (Like a Boy) hits. Get Up was also featured on the soundtrack to the movie Step Up. In 2006 she was also featured on Field Mob’s top ten hit, So What. Her third album, Fantasy Ride was released in May 2009, after being delayed from its original October 2008 release date. It gave Ciara another top ten hit (Love Sex Magic) which was also nominated for a Grammy. She then spent the rest of 2009 touring with Jay-Z and Britney Spears. Ciara released her fourth studio album, Basic Instinct in December 2010. Despite being well received by critics, it became her lowest selling album and failed to have any songs chart in the top 40. She openly bashed her record label for the lack of support and promotion for this album as well as Fantasy Ride, and asked to be released from her contract with the label who she was with for her entire career up until this point. Signing with a new label allowed Ciara to take her time with her fifth album. She felt as if she had been injected with new life. The album was titled Ciara and it was released in July 2013. It was more commercially successful than its predecessor and managed to spawn a top 20 hit (Body Part). Critics have called this album her one of her best. So now what does Ciara do now that she has momentum in her career for the first time since 2005? Does she get in the studio right away? Sure doesn’t. She went on hiatus in order to focus on her relationship with the rapper Future, whom she’d eventually have a kid with. As time went on, she began to gradually record more music and he was the main inspiration behind a lot of these songs. However, due to his continued infidelity, they broke up and the ENTIRE album was scrapped. She finally released her sixth album, Jackie, in May 2015. With all the momentum gone, it didn’t have songs chart in the top 40 and became her second worst selling album. She took another hiatus after this album to focus on her more successful relationship with Russell Wilson, not putting out another album until May 2019. Beauty Marks had no songs chart in the top 50 but the album is fine I guess. Now that her and Russell are expecting another child this year I doubt we see any new music from Ciara anytime soon.
Ciara is very talented. I think if she didn’t drop the ball on some albums she’d be way bigger than she is. But again she’s still really big, I mean the girl came out with Goodies, 1 2 Step, and Oh back to back to back like she was Michael Jordan during either one of his 3-peats. Her run is often overlooked but that ends today! Before we get to her rankings, let’s do a very quick bonus ranking of her three best features:
3. Like You (with Bow Wow)
2. So What (with Field Mob)
1. Lose Control (with Missy Elliott and Fatman Scoop)
Now onto the rankings
5. Love Sex Magic (ft. Justin Timberlake): Fun fact, The Box, by Roddy Rich samples this song. Between Russell Wilson’s second $100 million dollar contract and getting these royalties, Ciara stays cashing checks. When this quarantine ends I’m going make my friends mad by playing this and have them get hyped up for three seconds only for that joy to fade away immediately after, only for them to realize that this song is still very good.
4. Get Up (ft. Chamillionaire): I’ve always loved this song, it is very underrated and I’m glad it’s being brought to relevance again thanks to Tik Tok. What a great tune, it makes me pop, lock, and drop it furiously.
3. Oh (ft. Ludacris): What an incredible beat, and what an all time verse from Ludacris. This song is timeless. I learned from a young age that if I tried to dance like Ciara I would break every bone in body. I also cannot believe this song is 15 years old…. is this what it feels like to be a boomer when they put the Rolling Stones on?
2. 1, 2 Step (ft. Missy Elliott): Every week it feels like I see a different dance challenge online. Dances like the Renegade or the Woah. All these dances are very complex for someone who grew up dancing to 1, 2 Step. The problem is despite what the title of the song says, this dance is it’s actually three steps.
1. Goodies (ft. Petey Pablo): Russell Wilson was 15 when this song came out. Imagine him drooling over her in this music video and now he’s married to her. What a king.
Ranking the best words to describe beets:
10. Savory
9. Nutritious
8. Juicy
7. Ripe
6. Sweet
5. Luscious
4. Automatic
3. Supersonic
2. Hypnotic
1. Funky-Fresh
Your Turn
If you had a blog and were to rank every Ciara song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
| Goodies (ft. Petey Pablo) | 2004 | 1 | Goodies |
| 1, 2 Step (ft. Missy Elliott) | 2004 | 2 | Goodies |
| Oh (ft. Ludacris) | 2005 | 2 | Goodies |
| Get Up (ft. Chamillionaire) | 2006 | 7 | Ciara: The Evolution |
| Promise | 2006 | 11 | Ciara: The Evolution |
| Like a Boy | 2007 | 19 | Ciara: The Evolution |
| Love Sex Magic | 2009 | 10 | Fantasy Ride |
| Body Party | 2013 | 20 | Ciara |
Vin'sane Thoughts 