“My goodies, my goodies, my goodies, not my goodies.”

Glad I finally got that out. It’s been stuck in my head all day. And I’ve been contemplating Ciara’s career for the past few weeks. We all know her career and personal life have gone through so many ups and down but she has always landed on top.

2004

She first stepped on the scene in 2004 with her album “Goodies”. I remember having this actual, physical CD and thinking it was just so scandalous. I was 10 so talking about goodies was far from my everyday thoughts lol. This ENTIRE album was FIRE! I had it on replay for years. I was obsessed with Ciara. “Goodies”, “Oh”, “One, Two, Step” and pretty much the entire album had me dancing at all times. These are songs of hers that are still in heavy rotation today.

2006

Don’t even get me started with “The Evolution”! This album dropped in 2006 and gave us hits including “Like A Boy”, “Promise”, “Get Up” and many other bops. It did not disappoint. I remember recording 106 and Park and replaying the “Like A Boy” video a million times in my living room to learn the dance moves. I’m pretty sure my family was annoyed but oh well I had those moves LOCKED IN. You couldn’t tell me NOTHING! But I digress.

2009

Ciara took a little break from albums. When she returned in 2009 she brought us “Fantasy Ride”. There was maybe two hits here “Never Ever” featuring Young Jeezy and “Work” featuring Missy Elliot. But none of these songs hit the level of her previous singles.

2010

This year took a turn for Ciara. She released “Basic Instinct” which produced her next best hit since 2004. “Ride” featuring Ludacris brought Ciara back into the scene and people remembered why they loved her so much. The video showcased just how sick her body was and the dancing was unmatched.

2013

Next, Ciara gave us a self titled album that produced “Body Party”. This was a bop for sure and is still played today.

2015

Ciara released her next album “Jackie” in 2015. The only song that got any traction with mainstream radio was “I Bet”. A decent track and I definitely enjoyed it.

It was around this time that she met Russell Wilson and by 2016 she was married and living her best life! It was also at this point that I believe she began to rethink her career. She was quiet with music releases until 2018.

Ciara’s first 2 albums did very well. They had great tracks and significant radio play. From 2010-2015, her albums produced an average of one hit per album. Nothing wrong with that but if your songs aren’t resinating with your audience and one song is popping off and the rest is fluff, well that’s just a waste of production dollars and a waste of time in general. So what did Ciara do? Well, she got smart.

2018

In 2018 Ciara released “Level Up” as a standalone single. She had a pretty large social media following and she created the Level Up dance challenge and it went viral overnight.

The thing is, with the music industry changing right before our eyes, artists have had to adjust their careers accordingly. Streaming services have killed albums. And that’s not to say artists still aren’t making great albums, because they are. But my point is they don’t have to. Before streaming was a thing, artists had to create a bunch of songs at once on one CD, cassette, A-track, vinyl or whatever because that was the only way fans could access their music. Now, with platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, you can make and upload music in less than 24 hours.

Of course there are restrictions for artists signed to a label. You have to produce what they tell you to produce and when. But independent artists have more freedom. By the way Ciara also created her own music label during this time which is why I believe she was able to take control of the direction of her career and the create her own strategy of releasing singles. in stead of an album.

She recognized that for the majority of her career, one song from her album would hit and everything else pretty much flopped. So she started releasing singles.

2018-2019

This year gave us one of Ciara’s top 3 songs of all time. “Level Up” became a dance craze and Ciara was back on the map musically. She never truly went away because you know she was off rubbing elbows with fashion’s best over at Paris Fashion Week and becoming a fashion icon. Plus she had just married to one of the best quarterbacks in the league so, I mean, she never lost relevancy but I digress again lol. She also released “Dose”, Greatest Love” and “Thinking Bout You” to great success. Like wow! Ciara is BACK!!!!

2019

Now, Ciara just released an album today so obvi she didn’t listen to my advice. But she’s smart because the album is basically just a best of 2018/2019 lol. It includes “Level Up”, “Dose”, Greatest Love” and “Thinking Bout You”. So 36 percent of the album is content her audience is already familiar with. You Smart, Ciara. You smart, girl. She was like ya’ll gon like this one, I promise because I already released all these songs lol.

While some people would have given up hope and said, “well I guess people just don’t like my music anymore”. Ciara kept fighting. She knew she would strike gold and she has. I’m honestly just so proud of her and glad that she’s still making music, dancing and inspiring us all.