Crazy Days and Nights

I am not sure how many of you read all the comments, especially from the older posts so I am printing this for all to see. It is an incredible piece of research and done by someone I would love have working for me. The only problem is that I stated that 2000 was a fudge because it would be too easy to find the singer. I stand by the fact that it would be explosive if it ever came out, and there is only one person who can come forward to reveal all and it is not going to be me.

With all the websites that have linked to the story all with their own comments sections, of course people have guessed it, but I am not going to say. With all of that, I wanted to post this and say this is truly incredible.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Let me preface this post, by saying that if this s...":

my friend did some sleuthing and concluded that this may be a hoax. His response is below: This smells like a hoax to me but I don't like mysteries so I went ahead and tried to solve this one: The album in question was prolly released in 2001. I guessed that year because the story says that the singer was approached in "late 2000" and heard herself on the radio "several months later". There were 373 albums released in 2001 in America. For the moment, let's only consider albums released by a female solo artist. Believe it or not, that cuts the list down to 29 with a list of women that includes Alicia Keys (sorry, Cat), Madonna, Jessica Simpson, Pink, Mariah, Missy, Bjork, and three Spice Girls. Now if we limit the list again to women whose FIRST solo album came out that year, we are left with 5. (By the way, Jessica Simpson's first CD came out in 1999, with the hits "I wanna love you forever" and "I think I'm in Love with you" being two of the singles. I know some of you thought it was her.) So who's on that list? Album Artist Release Date A Girl Like Me Emma Bunton 16-Apr Songs in A Minor Alicia Keys 5-Jun The Spirit Room Michelle Branch 14-Aug Victoria Beckham Victoria Beckham 1-Oct Laundry Service Shakira 13-Nov The story went on to say that the artist in question was "taking off" and "had several Top 40 songs and CD's." Also, the "star" was "everywhere..on television, radio, awards, shows, commercials..EVERYWHERE.". Well, the Spice Girls are out since Emma only sold 125,000 of her first CD. And while Victoria did slightly better, Wikipedia has this to say : "Despite being one of the most famous celebrities in Britain, and having all her music reach the UK top ten (the only solo Spice to do so), Victoria Beckham's career as a solo artist is largely considered to have been a commercial failure." Also, it seems that Posh shelves more music than she releases and has not been all that prolific in the past 5 years. This leaves our curious threesome of Shakira, Michelle Branch, and Alicia Keys. Michelle Branch - Apparently, this girl has been rocking out since she was 8 years old and, technically, her first album was released in 2000. It was a self release CD called Broken Bracelet. Also, she toured with Hanson in December of 2000 when Madonna noticed her and signed her up to Maverick records (What the hell was Madonna doing at a Hanson concert?!!?). She went on to win Grammies and have 3 top 40 singles of that first Maverick-backed CD. In 2002, she did that Carlos Santana song "A Game of Love" which earned her another Grammy. Her second album went platinum but only spawned one top forty single. Alicia Keys - Allmusic.com reports that "Around the time that Songs in A Minor was released, Keys was popping up everywhere, including an Associated Press story. Where had she been before then?" Good question. Ms. Alicia Augello-Cook has has been playing the piano since age 7, wrote her first song at age 14, and graduated from the "Fame" high school at age 16. Her first commercial offering sold 235,000 the first week and sold more than ten million worldwide. This was followed by several Top 40 hits and five Grammies. Her next CD, released 2003 sold 618,000 copies the first week and has, to date, sold over 7 million units worldwide as well as earned her four more Grammies. However, Alicia's first recordings were in 1997 when she had a song on the Men In Black soundtrack. In addition, she was featured on the soundtracks of both Shaft (2000) and Dr. Doolittle 2 (2001). Shakira - Possibly the most famous of these three, Shakira steamrolled us all in 2001 with "Whenever, Wherever", all hips and moaning. Her CD, Laundry Service, sold more than 13 million copies and spawned several top 40 hits. She has performed at numerous award shows (including singing "Dude looks like a lady" at MTV Icon in 2002. A curious choice, isn't it. Maybe she's trying to tell us something...) and has herself snagged a carload of awards both her and overseas. She is the highest selling Columbian artist of all time (unless cocaine export is considered an art) and is quite possibly one of the most influential Latin American artists ever. Of course, what hasn't been mentioned is that Shakira was already a smashing success before she reached our shores, releasing her first (failed) CD in 1991 followed by 3 more, the last which made her a household name in Latin America and Spain. The Verdict: All three of these women have been in commercials and award shows and have been well covered by the media (Michelle Branch, prolly less so). But none of them really fit the description of the story. I mean, all these women have recordings that pre-date 2001. Finding differences in the vocals between now and then would be so easy a New York Post reporter could uncover it. What's more, all these women make a habit of performing live and while this can be faked, I would be SHOCKED to find it had been. So, in conclusion, I have no idea. Problems: if this happened in another country, the UK for example, this is all for naught since they have different release schedules and stars altogether. Also, wherever the email came from other details might have been changed such as the year that this happened which would throw everything off. Again, I think it's a hoax. Bib: Allmusic.com, Wikipedia.org, Amazon.com