Sean Paul
Album: Stage One
Release Date: March 21, 2000
Label: Universal Records

Customer Review:
Sean Paul has become an international star and a sought-after guest vocalist courtesy of his mega-selling "Dutty Rock" album. As a reslt, many listeners are picking up "Stage One" as well to see if there are lots of undiscovered gems in his back catalogue.
Simply put, "Stage One" is not an undiscovered gem. It is, however, a good listen.

The two absolute standout tracks here are "Deport Dem" and "Infiltrate". "Deport Dem" is famous partly as a result of its own quality, but also for being an example of the successful "Bookshelf" riddim (so named for Beenie Man’s hit single on it). Both tracks of course appear in the introduction to "Dutty Rock" as examples of a sound which a rock band just can’t create. Beyond these two tracks, there are moments of brilliance on the rest of the album, but not in song-length form. A lyric here, a phrase there is really the longest the rest of the album sustains top quality for.

By no means is this a slight on Paul’s work. As in the case of many debut albums, he just didn’t let his full talent shine through enough. Dancehall reggae being a singles-based genre, he had already earned a reasonable following before releasing the album and didn’t lose much of it as a result of this performance. As we all know, unless we’ve somehow been living on Mars in the past few years, by the time the next album came round, it was quite a different story.

Overall, this is a decent album, but not a must-have or anything like that. The dancehall fan will find more than enough to keep them entertained - predominantly on the riddim side of the ledger. The casual Sean Paul fan, however, will probably lose interest here.

No profanity, or inaproppriate remarks.