★★★★★
Mr. Lover Lover is back with another boombastic take on the commercial dancehall reggae format that has earnt him massive worldwide sales, international awards and, he would have us believe, more honeys than you can shake yo' booty at. As you might expect, Shaggy doesn't think his formula is broken, so makes no attempt to fix it with Clothesdrop (as in the title track 'Who can make your clothes drop?/Mr Lover'). You want sweaty dancehall riddims and caribbean vibes? Check...
- www.gigwise.com
2010-11-23
★★★★★
There's a reason Shaggy's selling millions of CDs: His dancehall is inoffensive, unless of course you think Shaggy's accessibility itself is offensive. I don't. I think Shaggy just wants to have fun. He certainly sounds like it, and so do his guests Chaka Khan and reggae stalwarts Barrington Levy and Tony Gold. Don't get me wrong - this is more pop than it is dancehall. So like it or not, this boy's gonna sell a few million more albums. (Bugs Burnett)
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Oh dear. Just when you think that Shaggy couldn't get any more hilarious (probably in a bad way), he goes and gives his 'best of' collection (bear in mind that this is meant to summarise his fairly successful career and years of hard work) the shameful title of 'The Boombastic Collection'. His dignity and pride must have been through the floor when he agreed to this decision in the hope of reviving an arguably long expired career...
- hangout.altsounds.com
2010-11-02
★★★★★
For reasons unknown, permanently aroused sub-baritone Shaggy (born Orville Richard Burrell) has had two platinum albums, five number one hits and 11 Top Ten singles on the strength of his hyper-sexed burblings. Like Electric Six - whose five-word vocabulary consisted of "fire", "disco", "nuclear", "war" and "dancefloor" - Shaggy has a very limited repertoire. Hot tubs feature heavily in his work, as do the things you call girls when you want to get them into bed...
- www.musicomh.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
As dancehall was thriving in 2000, so was Shaggy, with the pop smashes "It Wasn't Me" and "Angel." But despite shared roots, there was little kinship between him and the music; Shaggy was a teddy bear without any rough edges. On Clothesdrop he overcompensates, trying to display his dancehall bona fides?a keen sense of rhythm, bawdy lyrics ("Don't Ask Her That"), an homage to a past icon (echoing the velvet crooner Barrington Levy on "Broadway")...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
Clothes Drop is a typically canny and diverse selection: bona fide dancehall cuts interspersed with hooky pop. The pick of the bunch is the Scott Storch-produced Don't Ask Her That: Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger channels Jack Nicholson ("You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!") while Shaggy growls his counsel from the sidelines. DL · Download: Don't Ask Her That; Wild 2nite
- www.guardian.co.uk
2010-04-02
★★★★★
Mr Boombastic is back. Cheeky, cheesy and twice as big-headed as ever. Shaggy, the 'man who loves to make you moist and wet, the man who loves to make you moan and sweat' is not a modest man. There's enough sexually explicit lyrics to print on a forest of Andrex, all set to a poppy Caribbean beat. Monster single 'It Wasn't Me' is probably the strongest track on the album, though laidback ballad 'Angel', which plunders Steve Miller Band's 'Joker' has already topped the US charts...
- uk.launch.yahoo.com
2010-02-19
★★★★★
A quick recap. Shaggy has sold eleven million albums and six million singles around the world. He's been voted best selling pop, best selling male, best selling R&B; etc etc etc. Most of this success can be put down to last year's brilliant pop single, 'It Wasn't Me' and the familiar sound of 'Angel'. The ex-Marine has a distinctive grunt of a voice, performs lewd songs for the ladeez and yells "Shaggy" at the start of every other track just for good measure. It's proved a winning formula...
- uk.launch.yahoo.com
2010-02-19
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10