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I'm sure everyone would be familar with Ciara. For those who ain't, I've compiled some background info about her music career, starting from the highly successful "Goodies" album. But first, some random fact about her. Born in Austin, Texas on October 25th 1985 (she's turns 24 this year), with her birth name known as Ciara Princess Harris. That's interesting, but she is known just as Ciara.
During her early years in life, Ciara stated that watching Destiny's Child perform on a TV program at home inspired her to pursue a career in music. Later on, she found a "musical soulmate" when she met producer Jazze Pha, who would eventually produce her debut hit single, "Goodies". After Ciara graduted from High School, she was signed by LaFace Records (Pink's record label too) with the help of Jazze Pha. She began production on her debut album.
Goodies Era
Goodies is the debut album by Ciara and was released on Spetember 28th 2004 in the US and January 24th 2005 in the UK. The album focuses on mid-tempo R&B songs, hip hop-influenced dance tracks, catchy pop hooks and smooth ballads. She's one of the artists who started the Crunk & B craze, along with Usher (Yeah!). Ciara co-wrote a demo with songwriter Sean Garrett, who was co-writer of Usher's "Yeah!" and Hip-hop-crunk producer Lil Jon heard the demo and wanted to record the full song which became "Goodies".
The album spawned 4 singles. Lead single "Goodies" featuring Petey Pablo, 2nd single "1, 2 Step" featuring Missy Elliott, 3rd single "Oh" featuring Ludacris and 4th single "And I". "Goodies" reached number one in US and UK. The second and third single "1, 2 Step" and "Oh" peaked at the number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. "And I", the fourth single, did poorly compared to the first three releases. The song peaked at 96 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ciara also appeared on Missy Elliott's "Lose Control" from her album "The Cookbook" and won her first Grammy Award for "Best Short Form Music Video" for it.
Ciara: The Evolution Era
Ciara: The Evolution is the 2nd studio album by Ciara, released on December 5th 2006 in US on LaFace and the Zomba Label Group. It was released in the UK on April 9th 2007. The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 Album chart and the singles from the album are "Get Up", which features rapper Chamillionaire and also appears on the Step Up soundtrack, the top twenty singles "Promise" (which is Ciara’s first single to enter the top twenty without a featured act) and "Like a Boy". "Can't Leave 'Em Alone" which features rapper 50 Cent, was the fourth and last single from the album.
Fantasy Ride Era
Ciara released a promo song called "Go Girl", which features T-Pain, who also produces the single. The single was released on September 30th 2008. It was later announced that the single's performance wasn't enough to ignite the album's release so the album was eventually pushed back to Spring 2009 and a new lead single would be chosen. The album was released in the United States on May 5th 2009. The album debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, with 81,000 copies sold on the first week.
"Never Ever", the first official US single, was produced by Polow da Don and co-written by Ciara. The song, which features Young Jeezy, impacted radio on January 19th 2009. The single is more successful than "Go Girl" as the single reached number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 9 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
"Love Sex Magic" is the second US single (but first elsewhere) from the album. The song features Justin Timberlake, who also co-wrote and co-produced the track alongside upcoming production team, The Y's. The single reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the top 10 in other countries including the UK.
Currently, it was announced that Ciara will be the supporting act for Britney Spears world tour. She will serve as the opening act of her European Leg in June. In May 2009, Ciara announced that she will also be going on a 10-city summer tour with fellow rapper Jay-Z.
Future Singles
"Work" which features long-time friend and collaborator Missy Elliott was recently confirmed to be one of two songs that Ciara would be creating a music video for. The other song receiving video treatment is "Like a Surgeon", the news was confirmed on her official website. Currently there is no official release date for either song and it is unknown whether the singles will be released at the same time as a dual release or separately. On May 24, 2009 she used her Twitter to confirm the video for "Work" was complete. Hmm, for explaination, usually a music video would signify that the song will be a single. Most of the time that is. =)
