''The Senior'' is the fourth studio album by American singer Ginuwine. It was released in the United States on April 8, 2003, via

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical m ...

. The album was primarily produced by Bryan-Michael Cox, with additional production from

Scott Storch Scott Spencer Storch (born December 16, 1973) is an American record producer and songwriter. He started off as a keyboardist for the group the Roots. Early life Storch was born on Long Island, New York. He was raised in South Florida and Phi ...

, R. Kelly, and

Joe Little III Joe N Little III (born July 14, 1968) is an American singer, songwriter and producer who is best known as the lead singer of the 90s R&B group, Rude Boys, who had two No. 1 R&B singles, " Written All Over Your Face" and " Are You Lonely For Me", ...

. The album debuted at 6 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 with first-week sales of 122,000 copies and was certified Gold by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...

(RIAA). Three singles were released from the album with all of them appearing on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100: "Hell Yeah" peaking at No. 17, " In Those Jeans" peaking at No. 8, and "Love You More" peaking at No. 78. In an interview with ''

106 & Park ''106 & Park'' is an American hip hop and R&B music video show, set up in a countdown format, that was broadcast on weekdays at 6:00 pm ET/5:00 pm CT on BET; it aired on a one-day delay on BET International. It was the network's highest- rate ...

'', Ginuwine said that

Missy Elliott Melissa Arnette Elliott (born July 1, 1971), better known as Missy Elliott or Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. She embarked on her music career with R&B girl group Sista in the earl ...

and Tweet were among the producers for the album, however their contributions never made the final cut.

Critical reception

''The Senior'' received generally favorable reviews from music critics, averaging a 60 out of a 100 among averaged reviews on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

editor John Bush wrote the album "finds the R&B jack-of-all-trades attempting to get in on the game with tracks that mine urban lingo for potential hit combinations ..As before, Ginuwine rises above most of his dozens of imitators in the contemporary R&B realm, with a set of productions that fit his voice perfectly and rate as slightly edgier than the norm." ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...

''s Craig Seymour found that "on the finest tracks of his fourth set, R&B balladeer Ginuwine delivers cliched slow jams with convincing emotion. But too much of the album skews toward the dance floor rather than the bedroom, with Ginuwine’s vocals lost in a routine groove. He calls this ''The Senior'', but it’s sophomoric, at best." '' Vibe'' magazine remarked that "not much has changed for Ginuwine since his debut. He's still racing R. Kelly to see who can sing the ladies out of their panties first."

Commercial performance

''The Senior'' debuted and peaked at number six on the US ''Billboard'' 200, selling 122,000 copies in its first week, a little shy of the 152,000 copies Ginuwine's 2001 album '' The Life'' had debuted with. On ''Billboard''s component charts, it became his first album to top the

Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated ...

chart. ''The Senior'' was eventually certified gold by the

(RIAA) for the shipment of over 500,000 copies in the United States. By November 2005, the album had sold over 863,000 units, according to

Nielsen Soundscan Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...

Track listing

Notes * denotes additional producer * denotes co-producer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Senior, The 2003 albums Albums produced by Bryan-Michael Cox Albums produced by Scott Storch Albums produced by R. Kelly Albums produced by Troy Taylor (record producer) Ginuwine albums Epic Records albums