Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Pop: 18 Year Old Sensation Shawn Mendes Hits the Charts at Number 1 with Second Album

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Shawn Mendes’s second album, “Illuminate,” is number 1 this week. The 18 year old sold 120,000 CDs and downloads, and about 23,000 more streams.

This is quite an achievement as two years ago no one except his parents and manager Andrew Gertler knew who he was. But my teenage nieces had seen him on YouTube and told me about Shawn in 2014, and we went at their urging to his first ever show in New York. A couple hundred other girls also showed up and the screaming level was off the charts.

Mendes is a better Bieber, a real songwriter who plays most of his shows acoustic. He comes from Canada, has lovely parents, and won’t be getting arrested any time soon. There’s no fakery here. What a relief!

 

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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