by Arsenio Orteza
Post Date:
January 11, 2003 Issue Date:
January 11, 2003

Bestsellers

Name: WORLD
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The Top 5 best-selling CDs for the week ending Dec. 28, according to Billboard magazine

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1 UP! Shania Twain

4 weeks on chart

STYLE Disc One: omnipop; Disc Two: same songs, mildly countrified.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL Immodest photos.

WORLDVIEW "She flies an airplane-she drives a subway train / At night she pumps gasoline / She's on the council-she's on the board / She's a politician-she praises the Lord" ("She's Not Just a Pretty Face").

OVERALL QUALITY Two nearly identical 19-song discs equals too much of a good thing.

2 HOME Dixie Chicks

16 weeks on chart

STYLE Unplugged country with bluegrass roots.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None (not even "White Trash Wedding," which is dramatic, not didactic).

WORLDVIEW "More love, I know that's all we need ... / To take us and hold us and lift us above / If there's ever an answer / It's more love" ("More Love").

OVERALL QUALITY Refreshing-avoids the overproduction, prefabrication, cartoonishness, and obvious cover-song choices usually associated with best-selling country.

3 I CARE 4 U Aaliyah

1 weeks on chart

STYLE Sleek, highly stylized contemporary R&B with an erotic subtext made explicit by videos on the bonus DVD.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL "More Than a Woman" (explicit sexuality) and the bonus videos, each of which feature a barely dressed Aaliyah bumping, grinding, "belly-rolling," and leaving no doubt as to her meaning.

WORLDVIEW "Sometimes I'm goody-goody / Right now I'm naughty-naughty" ("Are You That Somebody").

OVERALL QUALITY Better heard than seen.

4 THE DANCEHALL DOCTORS Tim McGraw

3 weeks on chart

STYLE Contemporary country.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None (not even "Red Ragtop," in which premarital sex and abortion cause heartache).

WORLDVIEW That the "politically correct" who say "Don't pray in school but ... have safe sex" probably live in L.A. and may not have souls ("Who Are They").

OVERALL QUALITY "I may not be the best of singers / There's better guys I've heard" ("I Know How to Love You Well").

5 8 MILE Various Performers

7 weeks on chart

STYLE Rap.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL Most of the 16 tracks (including the six on the bonus sampler) (obscenities, profanities, vulgarity, racial slurs).

WORLDVIEW That rap, despite its tendency to cater to, and to lower, the lowest common denominator, is legitimate both as entertainment and as a way for the underprivileged to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

OVERALL QUALITY Lowest common denominator (exceptions: Macy Gray, Boomkat).

Arsenio Orteza

Arsenio is a music reviewer for WORLD Magazine and one of its original contributors from 1986.

@ArsenioOrteza

Bestsellers

The Top 5 best-selling CDs for the week ending Dec. 28, according to Billboard magazine

Full access isn’t far.

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