I told you folks about Shawn Mendes first, about three years ago when he played his first show in New York. Since then the talented teen– a better Bieber, as it were– has had nothing but success.
Now his third album, self titled, has finished its debut week on the charts at number 1– but really number 1. The album sold about 182,000 including streaming.
That makes “Shawn Mendes” the first pop album in a while at the top of what is mostly a hip hop chart. The top 50 albums counted by BuzzAngle and hitsdailydouble only has two or three pop oriented albums below number 1. In fact, from 2 to 7 it’s all hip hop including Cardi B, Post Malone, and Pusha T.
So Mendes got either got white kids to stream his music, or black kids are really digging him– which is great. Or maybe it’s just a rainbow coalition of people in general.
The NY Times panned the album, saying Mendes had too many big name songwriting collaborators. I can’t address that. I do know that Mendes started with these very James Taylor-Jackson Browne-ish songs he wrote himself and played acoustic. I hope he hasn’t sold out, but if he has, maybe he’ll return next time just doing his own stuff. He’s only 20.
Now Mendes cedes the top position to Kanye West, who released today. The number 1 crown next Friday is his to lose. So far he’s number 1 on iTunes and amazon, so that’s a good start.
