Wired

Editor-in-Chief	Chris Anderson
Former editors	Louis Rossetto
Categories	Business, technology, lifestyle, thought leadership
Monthly
Total circulation (2011)	798,020[1]
First issue	January 1993
Company	Condé Nast
Country	United States 37°46′51″N 122°23′45″W / 37.7808°N 122.3957°W / 37.7808; -122.3957
Language	English
Website	wired.com
ISSN	1059-1028

Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

It now has four international editions: Wired UK, Wired Italia, Wired Japan and Wired Germany (since September 2011).

In its earliest colophons Wired credited Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan as its "patron saint." From the beginning, the strongest immediate influence on the magazine's editorial outlook came from the techno-utopian agenda of co-founder Stewart Brand and his long-time associate Kevin Kelly.^[2]

From 1998 to 2006, Wired magazine and Wired News (which publishes at Wired.com) had separate owners. However, throughout that time, Wired News remained responsible for reprinting Wired magazine's content online, due to a business agreement made when Condé Nast purchased the magazine (but not the website). In July 2006, Condé Nast announced an agreement to buy Wired News for $25 million, reuniting the magazine with its website.

Wired is known for coining new terms, such as "the Long Tail"^[3] and "crowdsourcing".^[4] It is also well known for its annual tradition of handing out Vaporware Awards which recognize "products, videogames and other nerdy tidbits pitched, promised and hyped, but never delivered".^[5]

History[link]

The magazine was founded by American journalist Louis Rossetto and his partner Jane Metcalfe and Ian Charles Stewart in 1993 with initial backing from software entrepreneur Charlie Jackson and eclectic academic Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab, who was a regular columnist for six years, through 1998 and wrote the book Being Digital. The founding designers were John Plunkett and Barbara Kuhr (Plunkett+Kuhr), beginning with a 1991 prototype and continuing through the first five years of publication, 1993–98.

Wired, which touted itself as "the Rolling Stone of technology,"^[6] made its debut at the Macworld conference on January 2, 1993.^[7] A great success at its launch, it was lauded for its vision, originality, innovation and cultural impact.^{[citation needed]} In its first four years, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards for General Excellence and one for Design.

The founding executive editor of Wired, Kevin Kelly, was formerly one of the editors of the Whole Earth Catalog and the Whole Earth Review, and he brought with him many contributing writers from those publications. Six authors of the first Wired issue (1.1) had written for Whole Earth Review, most notably Bruce Sterling and Stewart Brand. Other contributors to Whole Earth appeared in Wired, including William Gibson, who was featured on Wired's cover in its first year and whose article "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" in issue 1.4 resulted in the publication being banned in Singapore.^[8]

Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto claimed in the magazine's first issue that "the Digital Revolution is whipping through our lives like a Bengali typhoon,"^[9] yet despite the fact that Kelly was involved in launching the WELL, an early source of public access to the Internet and even earlier non-Internet online experience, Wired's first issue de-emphasized the Internet, and covered interactive games, cell-phone hacking, digital special effects, military simulations, and Japanese otaku. However, the first issue did contain a few references to the internet, including online-dating and internet sex, and a tutorial on installing a bozo filter. The last page, a column written by Nicholas Negroponte, was written in the style of an e-mail message, but contained obviously fake, non-standard e-mail addresses. By the third issue in the fall of 1993 the "Net Surf" column began listing interesting FTP sites, Usenet newsgroups, and e-mail addresses, at a time when the numbers of these things were small and this information was still extremely novel to the public. Wired was among the first magazines to list the email address of its authors and contributors.

Associate publisher Kathleen Lyman (formerly of News Corporation and Ziff Davis) was brought on board to launch Wired with an advertising base of major technology and consumer advertisers. Lyman, along with Simon Ferguson (Wired's first advertising manager), introduced revolutionary ad campaigns by a diverse group of industry leaders—such as Apple Computer, Intel, Sony, Calvin Klein, and Absolut—to the readers of the first technology publication with a lifestyle slant.

The magazine was quickly followed by a companion website HotWired, a book publishing division, HardWired, a Japanese edition, and a short-lived British edition, Wired UK. Wired UK was relaunched in April 2009.^[10] In 1994, John Battelle, co-founding editor, commissioned Jules Marshall to write a piece on the Zippies. The cover story broke records for being one of the most publicized stories of the year and was used to promote Wired's HotWired news service.^[11]

HotWired itself spawned dozens of websites including Webmonkey, the search engine HotBot, and a weblog, Suck.com. In June 1998, the magazine even launched its own stock index, The Wired Index, since July 2003 called The Wired 40.

The fortune of the magazine and allied enterprises corresponded closely to that of the dot-com bubble. In 1996, Rossetto and the other participants in Wired Ventures attempted to take the company public with an IPO. The initial attempt had to be withdrawn in the face of a downturn in the stock market, and especially the internet sector, during the summer of 1996. The second try was also unsuccessful.

Rossetto and Metcalfe lost control of Wired Ventures to financial investors Providence Equity Partners in May 1998, who quickly sold off the company in pieces. Wired was purchased by Advance Publications, who assigned it to Advance's subsidiary, New York-based publisher Condé Nast Publications (while keeping Wired's editorial offices in San Francisco).^[12] Wired Digital (wired.com, hotbot.com, webmonkey.com, etc.) was purchased by Lycos and run independently from the rest of the magazine until 2006 when it was sold by Lycos to Advance Publications, returning the websites back to the same company that published the magazine.

There is talk of Wired launching an Indian edition in 2012.^[13]

The Anderson era[link]

Wired survived the dot-com bubble and found a new direction under editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, who took on the job in June 2001 and has made the magazine's coverage "more mainstream".^[14]

Under Anderson, Wired has produced some widely noted articles, including the April 2003 "Welcome to the Hydrogen Economy" story, the November 2003 "Open Source Everywhere" issue (which put Linus Torvalds on the cover and articulated the idea that the open source method was taking off outside of software, including encyclopedias as evidenced by Wikipedia), the February 2004 "Kiss Your Cubicle Goodbye" issue (which presented the outsourcing issue from both American and Indian perspectives), and an October 2004 article by Chris Anderson, which coined the popular term "Long Tail".

The November 2004 issue of Wired was published with The Wired CD. All of the songs on the CD were released under various Creative Commons licenses, an attempt to push alternative copyright into the spotlight. Most of the songs were contributed by major artists, including the Beastie Boys, My Morning Jacket, Paul Westerberg, and David Byrne.

In recent years Wired has won several industry awards. In 2005 the magazine received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in the category of 500,000 to 1,000,000 subscribers.^[15] That same year Anderson won Advertising Age's editor of the year award.^[15] In May 2007, the magazine again won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence.^[16] In 2008, Wired was nominated for three National Magazine Awards and won the ASME for Design. It also took home 14 Society of Publication Design Awards, including the Gold for Magazine of the Year. In 2009, Wired was nominated for four National Magazine Awards -- including General Excellence, Design, Best Section (Start), and Integration -- and won three: General Excellence, Design and Best Section (Start). David Rowan from Wired UK was awarded the BSME Launch of the Year 2009 award.^[17] On December 14, 2009, Wired magazine was named Magazine of the Decade by the editors of Adweek.^[18]

In 2006, writer Jeff Howe and editor Mark Robinson coined the term crowdsourcing in the June issue.^[19]

On February 19, 2009, Condé Nast Italia launched the Italian edition of Wired and Wired.it.^[20] On April 2, 2009, Condé Nast relaunched the UK edition of Wired, edited by David Rowan, and launched Wired.co.uk, which is now run by ex-CNET editor Nate Lanxon.^[21]

On August 15, 2009 Wired writer, Evan Ratliff "vanished" attempting to keep his whereabouts secret saying "I will try to stay hidden for 30 days." A $5,000 reward was offered to his finder(s).^[22] Ratliff was found September 8 in New Orleans by a team effort, which was written about by Ratliff in a later issue.

On May 27, 2010, Wired released its Tablet edition, first available on the iPad. Embraced by consumers and heralded as the beginning of a new era in publishing, the Wired iPad edition was downloaded an average of 17 times a minute for the first 24 hours, netting 24,000+ paid subscriptions. Over the ensuing days, Apple named the Wired Tablet Edition, "The App of the Week," making it the first media brand to earn this acknowledgment; and the Wired App remained the #1 Paid Download on iTunes for 5 consecutive days. Close to three weeks following the release of this Tablet Edition, Wired had sold 90,000+ copies - exceeding the average monthly newsstand sales of its print edition.^{[citation needed]}

In October and November 2010, Wired found itself embroiled in some controversy after many customers were unable to download the November issue of the Tablet edition after having been charged for it. Wired was in a tricky position, as the error message appeared to be related to the Adobe development suite they were using to put together the digital edition, and because individual issues are purchased through Apple's App Store, Wired was unable to issue refunds directly to affected customers. As of mid-November 2010, the issue had not been resolved, and Wired released the December issue prior to fixing the issue with the November edition. The impact on sales (if any) of later issues related to the negative feedback from disgruntled Wired customers is unknown at this time.^{[citation needed]}

NextFest[link]

From 2004 to 2008, Wired organized an annual "festival of innovative products and technologies".^[23] A NextFest had also been planned for 2009, but it was later canceled.^[24]

• 2004: May 14–16 at the Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
• 2005: June 24–26 at Navy Pier, Chicago
• 2006: September 28 – October 1 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York City
• 2007: September 13–16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles
• 2008: September 27 – October 12 at Millennium Park in Chicago

Supplement[link]

• Geekipedia is a supplement to Wired.^[25]

Contributors[link]

Over the years, Wired's writers have included Jorn Barger, John Perry Barlow, John Battelle, Paul Boutin, Stewart Brand, Gareth Branwyn, Po Bronson, Scott Carney, Michael Chorost, Douglas Coupland, James Daly, Joshua Davis, J. Bradford DeLong, Mark Dery, David Diamond, Patrick Di Justo, Cory Doctorow, Esther Dyson, Mark Frauenfelder, Simson Garfinkel, William Gibson, Dan Gillmor Mike Godwin, George Gilder, Lou Ann Hammond, Danny Hillis, Steven Johnson, Bill Joy, Jon Katz, Leander Kahney, Richard Kadrey, Jaron Lanier, Lawrence Lessig, Paul Levinson, Steven Levy, John Markoff, Wil McCarthy, Glyn Moody, Charles Platt, Josh Quittner, Spencer Reiss, Howard Rheingold, Rudy Rucker, Paul Saffo, Evan Schwartz, Peter Schwartz, Alex Steffen, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Chris Hardwick, John Hodgman, Kevin Warwick, Dave Winer, Belinda Parmar and Gary Wolf. Guest editors have included Rem Koolhaas, James Cameron, Will Wright, and JJ Abrams.

See also[link]

• Louis Rossetto

References[link]

External resources[link]

• Wired (owned by Condé Nast Publications)
• Wired UK website (owned by Condé Nast Publications)
• Wired Italy website
• "WIRED Store"
• "WIRED Business Conference"
• Wired Netvibes Universe
• Back Catalog Article Listing/Rating
• NextFest
• The 'Future of Green' at WIRED NextFest
• Wired Science TV show on PBS
• VIDEO Wired Creative Director Scott Dadich on designing the magazine- on [ABCFora]
• "Wired UK: what nearly happened", an article on the rise and fall of Wired UK
• The short-lived Wired UK
• List of Wired UK employees
• Wired UK archive - reproduces some of the articles that appeared in the magazine.
• Wired Magazine Covers Timeline
• Wired circulation and demographics
• Wolf, Gary (2003). Wired: A Romance. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50290-4. 

Neill Blomkamp
Blomkamp at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International
Born	(1979-09-17) September 17, 1979 (age 32) Johannesburg, South Africa
Occupation	Director
Years active	1996–present
Spouse	Terri Tatchell

Neill Blomkamp (born 17 September 1979) is a South African-Canadian^[1] film and advertisement writer and director. Blomkamp employs a documentary-style, hand-held, cinéma vérité technique, blending naturalistic and photo-realistic computer-generated effects. He is best known as the co-writer and director of critically acclaimed District 9, his only feature film to date. He is based out of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Time named Blomkamp as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2009.^[2] Forbes magazine named him as the 21st most powerful celebrity from Africa.

Early life and career[link]

Blomkamp was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. At 16, he met Sharlto Copley who had also attended Redhill High School in Johannesburg. Copley provided Blomkamp with the use of computers at his production company in order to pursue his passion and talent for 3D animation and design - in return, Blomkamp assisted Copley in creating 3D work for pitches on various projects. His family moved to Vancouver when Blomkamp was 18, where he enrolled in Vancouver Film School. In 2003, Blomkamp was hired to illustrate photo-real future aircraft for Popular Science's "Next century in Aviation" and in 2004 was hired to illustrate "The Future of the Automobile".^[3] Blomkamp worked as a visual effects artist at The Embassy Visual Effects in Vancouver as well as Rainmaker Digital Effects. Blomkamp was signed by Toronto commercial house Spy Films.

In 2007, Blomkamp directed a trilogy of live-action short films (known collectively as Landfall) set in the Halo universe, to promote the release of Halo 3. In 2008, Halo: Combat Evolved, the first of the three installments, won the Cannes Lions 2008 – Film Lions Grand Prix.

Blomkamp was then slated to direct his first feature-length film, an adaptation of the Halo series of video games, produced by Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson had come to know about Blomkamp after viewing a reel of his commercial work and shorts shot in his off time. The four shorts that got him noticed included Tetra Vaal, a faux advertisement for a third-world robotic police that established Neill Blomkamp's signature style of mixing lo-fi production with seamless CGI; Alive in Joburg, a gritty "documentary" about extraterrestrials marooned in Johannesburg; Tempbot, an Office Space-esque spoof; and Yellow, a short film based on the colour yellow for Adidas' "Adicolor" campaign, which portrays a globe-trotting AI gone rogue.

When funding for the Halo film collapsed,^[4] Peter Jackson decided to produce District 9 instead, an adaptation of Blomkamp's earlier short film Alive in Joburg, which had been produced by Hansen and Copley. The film, directed by Blomkamp and starring Copley, was released in mid-August 2009, to positive reviews.^[5]

On October 2010, a video was released on the iPad version of the Wired Magazine, credited to Neill Blomkamp, which shows an amateur recording of two young men who find a dead mutated creature in a puddle of mud while driving down a countryside road. The creature, a dog-sized mix between a pig and a lizard, presents a tattooed seal on its side that reads "18.12 AGM Heartland Pat. Pend. USA".^[6] Also, "AGM Heartland" was trademarked for its use in an entertainment-oriented website. It is yet unknown whether this video holds any relation to Blomkamp's current project, Elysium.^[7]

Filmography[link]

Feature films[link]

• District 9 (2009) (co-writer, director)
• Elysium (2013) (writer, director)
• Chappie (N/A)

Short films[link]

• Tetra Vaal (2004) (director, visual FX)
• Alive in Joburg (2005) (director, writer, visual FX)
• Yellow (2006) (director, visual FX)
• Tempbot (2006) (director)
• Halo: Landfall (2007) (director)

Commercials[link]

• Nike - Crab (2003)^[8] / Evolution (2004)^[9]
• Citroën C4 - Alive with technology (2004)^[10]
• Gatorade - Rain (2006)^[11]

Other credits[link]

• Stargate SG-1 (1998) (3D animator)
• First Wave (1998) (3D animator)
• Mercy Point (1998) (3D animator)
• Aftershock: Earthquake in New York (1999) (3D animator)
• Dark Angel (2000) (lead animator)
• Art of Dying music video - Day Survive (2001) (director, visual FX)^[12]
• 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001) (lead 3D animator)
• Smallville (2001) (3D animator)
• BV-01 (2005) (special thanks)
• Best Ever Ads 2 (2006) (himself)
• Crossing the Line (2008) (additional director)

Recognition[link]

• 2004, First Boards Awards - "One of the top five directors to watch"
• 2004, Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival - "Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase"
• 2004, Shark Awards (shortlisted)
• 2005, VES awards "Outstanding VFX in a commercial" for Citroen - Alive with technology
• 2008, Cannes Lions 2008 - Film Lions- Grand Prix - Halo: Combat
• 2009, Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Director & Satellite Award for Best Adapted Screenplay - District 9
• 2009, Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - District 9
• 2009, Won - Bradbury Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America - District 9^[13]
• 2010, Nominated - Academy Award for Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Nomination for Academy Award for Best Picture 2009 - District 9 (Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell)

In popular culture[link]

• Blomkamp is mentioned in the song "Baby's On Fire" from the South African group Die Antwoord's 2012 album Ten$Ion.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Neill Blomkamp at the Internet Movie Database
• Website for Spy Films productions
• Neill Blomkamp talking District 9 at FEARnet
• Alive in Joburg at www.spyfilms.com
• Neill Blomkamp interview at AMCtv.com
• Neill Blomkamp interview with Comic-Con

Robert Carlyle
Robert Carlyle in 2011
Born	(1961-04-14) 14 April 1961 (age 51) Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1990–present
Spouse	Anastasia Shirley (1997–present)[citation needed]

Robert Carlyle, OBE (born 14 April 1961) is a Scottish actor. He is known for a variety of roles in films such as Trainspotting, The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes, The 51st State, and 28 Weeks Later. In addition to his film work, he is also known for his roles in the television shows Hamish Macbeth and Once Upon A Time.

Early life[link]

Carlyle was born in Maryhill, Glasgow, the son of Elizabeth, a bus company employee, and Joseph Carlyle, a painter and decorator.^[1][2] He was brought up by his father after his mother left when Carlyle was four years old.^[3][4] He left school at the age of 16 without any qualifications and worked for his father as a painter and decorator; however, he continued his education by attending night classes at Cardonald College in Glasgow.^[5]

Career[link]

Carlyle became involved in drama at the Glasgow Arts Centre at the age of 21 (having been inspired by reading Arthur Miller's The Crucible), and subsequently graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In 1991, he and four friends founded a theatre company, Raindog (which is now primarily involved in television and film work), and guest starred in The Bill. The same year he starred in his first movie, Riff-Raff, directed by Ken Loach.

In 1994, he played the gay lover of Father Greg in the film Priest. Carlyle's first high-profile role came as murderer Albert "Albie" Kinsella in an October 1994 episode of Cracker opposite Robbie Coltrane (in which Kinsella killed five people, including Christopher Eccleston's DCI David Bilborough). This highly acclaimed role showcased Carlyle's "pure intensity".^[6] Shortly after his appearance in Cracker, he landed the role of Highland policeman Hamish Macbeth in the BBC comedy-drama Hamish Macbeth. The series ran for three seasons from 1995 to 1997.

In 1996 and 1997, he appeared in the two most high-profile roles of his career to date: that of the psychopathic Francis Begbie in Trainspotting and Gaz, the leader of a group of amateur male strippers, in The Full Monty, the latter earning Carlyle a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He also starred with Ray Winstone in the 1997 film Face. Carlyle played the senior Malachy McCourt (father of author Frank McCourt) in the 1999 film adaptation of McCourt's first memoir, Angela's Ashes, the arch villain Renard in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, and a cannibalistic soldier in the 1999 Ravenous.

Carlyle appeared in the 2002 Oasis music video for "Little By Little". He played Adolf Hitler in the 2003 miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil. In 2006 he played the villain Durza in Eragon. In 2007 Carlyle played one of the main characters in the film 28 Weeks Later. He also played the lead role as a marine engineer, attempting to save London from total devastation in the disaster film Flood. That year he also portrayed Father Joseph Macavoy in the film The Tournament.

In 2008 Carlyle narrated a BBC audiobook version of The Cutting Room. In 2008, Carlyle was cast as Dr. Nicholas Rush in the television series Stargate Universe.^[7][8] His involvement has been described thus, "As [the team fights] to survive, Dr. Rush (Carlyle) works to unlock the mysteries of the ship and return the group home, but evidence of his ulterior motives soon arises." Carlyle was touted by the studio as the "leading role" in Universe.^[9] In December 2008, Carlyle appeared in 24: Redemption, a television movie of the popular series 24, starring alongside Kiefer Sutherland.

In 2009, Carlyle appeared in a long-form commercial for Johnnie Walker whisky, titled "The Man Who Walked Around The World", that showed Carlyle walking down a path and talking for six minutes in a single long take. The ad took two days to film. The director, Jamie Rafn, afterwards referred to Carlyle as an "utter genius".^[10] He voices the character of Gabriel Belmont, and his counterpart, the immortal Count Dracula in the video game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, released in 2010.

Beginning in October 2011 Carlyle portrayed Rumpelstiltskin in the fantasy-drama series Once Upon A Time. His recurring role is symbolized not only in the story of Rumpelstiltskin, but also in the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast (within the show) as the Beast. He plays a deal maker; an arm and a leg for a little bit of magic from him.

Acting style[link]

Known for his commitment to authenticity in roles, Carlyle has often altered his lifestyle and physical appearance to better understand a character; before playing a homeless character in Antonia Bird's Safe, he went to live in the Waterloo area of London where the film was set. For his role as a bus driver in Ken Loach's Carla's Song, he passed the test for a PSV licence (a licence to drive a bus with passengers) in a Glasgow Leyland Atlantean bus.^[11]

Personal life[link]

Carlyle is married to make-up artist Anastasia Shirley, with whom he has three children: Ava (born 2002), Harvey (born 2004), and Pearce Joseph (born 2006). The family lives in Glasgow. Carlyle is a supporter of Rangers,^[12] and is the patron of School For Life in Romania.^[13]

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

Video games[link]

Music videos[link]

Audio books[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robert Carlyle

• Robert Carlyle at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert Carlyle biography and credits at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• An onstage video interview with Robert Carlyle at BAFTA

The Dutchess is the debut studio album by American recording artist Fergie, who is a member of The Black Eyed Peas. The album was released on September 19, 2006. As of 2008, the album has sold more than six million copies worldwide. The song, "All That I Got (The Make Up Song)" has been remixed slightly and used as one of the two main music themes for Tyra Banks' talk show, Tyra. Edited and Parental Advisory versions of the album were available. In Japan, the United States and Australia, deluxe versions of the album were released. For sales in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, the Parental Advisory version is the only Universal album edited in Peru.

The album produced 5 top five singles in the U.S., including three number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, "London Bridge", "Big Girls Don't Cry", and "Glamorous", as well as the number two single "Fergalicious" and the number five single "Clumsy". All five of the aforementioned singles have sold over two million digital downloads each in the U.S., thus setting a new record in the digital era for the most multi-platinum singles from one album.^[1]

Background[link]

The title is a derivation and misspelling of the title "The Duchess of York", as Fergie (a derivative of her last name "Ferguson") and Sarah Ferguson, the real Duchess of York, share a surname and nickname. will.i.am was an executive producer for the album. Ludacris, B-Real from Cypress Hill and Rita Marley all make guest appearances.^[2] Fergie has made it clear in interviews that she will still be an active member of the Black Eyed Peas.

In Australia, with the success of her first number-one single "Big Girls Don't Cry", the album peaked at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart on July 23, 45 weeks after it was released. The album has shifted over 210,000 copies and is certified triple platinum by ARIA. It has spent an impressive 62 weeks inside the nation's top 50, and 21 weeks inside the top 10.^[3] It spent four consecutive weeks at number one.^[4] Fergie has also had five consecutive top 4 hits from a debut album, the first artist to do so was Delta Goodrem with her 2003 album, Innocent Eyes, which had five consecutive number ones. Due to the re-release of The Dutchess in the U.S, the original album bounced back from #104 to #28, because of the 11,000 copies of the deluxe edition sold in its first week.

On December 21, 2007, Fergie performed "Finally" on the 9th Annual A Home for the Holidays special on CBS and on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2008 on ABC, where Ryan Seacrest announced that it would be a single in 2008. It was released to radio on February 26, 2008.^[5] The music video for "Finally" was filmed by Marc Webb, but has yet to be released.^[6] Some songs were written with Fergie's old band, Wild Orchid members Renee Sands, and Stefanie Ridel.

Singles[link]

"London Bridge" was released as the lead single from the album on July 18, 2006, and was Fergie's first single as a solo artist. As of January 1, 2008, the single has sold 1,792,912 copies in the U.S. "Fergalicious" is the second single from the album, The Dutchess. It features Black Eyed Peas member will.i.am, who also produced the track. "Fergalicious" was not officially released as the second single in the UK, where "Glamorous" was officially made the second single instead. However, "Fergalicious" still managed to chart at number 26 on the UK Official Download Chart and will be released as the fourth single there, over a year after the song's initial release, as a double A-side with "Clumsy". This is possibly due to the huge success of "Big Girls Don't Cry" in the UK which reached #2, saved the album, and even made it reach a new peak position at #18. As of August 2008, the single has sold over 2,700,000 copies.

"Glamorous" is the third single of The Dutchess; the song features Ludacris. The beat was originally presented to Gwen Stefani as a remix for her single "Luxurious", but the singer ultimately decided not to use it. Ludacris' verse is leftover from that version. In March 2007, the song became Fergie's second number-one single in the United States. The single was released on March 19, 2007 in the UK and was the second single taken from the album. The single was not as successful in Latin America (excluding Mexico, where it proved to be a hit) as "London Bridge" and "Fergalicious". "Glamorous" is the fourth single from the album in Brazil, where "Big Girls Don't Cry" was released as the third single. Fergie sang this song along with "Big Girls Don't Cry" at the Concert for Diana. As of March 2008, the single has sold 2,300,000 copies. "Big Girls Don't Cry", also known as "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)", is a song written by Fergie and Toby Gad for Fergie's debut solo album The Dutchess (2006). The song was released as the album's fourth single in 2007 (see 2007 in music) and topped the charts in several countries, most notably in Australia (for nine consecutive weeks - also becoming the number-one single in the ARIA's Year End Charts for 2007), and in the United States. It was the most played song of 2007 in Brazil (the success of the song there is due to Big Brother Brasil, which chose the song as the theme of the most popular couple of the show) and the most downloaded track in the U.S., with astonishing sales of more than 2,750,000 copies sold. In July 2007, Fergie performed the song at the Concert for Diana and Live Earth. By the end of August 2007, the song became Fergie's third number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was nominated in the 'Best Female Pop Vocal Performance' category at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, which was held February 10, 2008.

"Clumsy" was written by Fergie and will.i.am, sampling Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It", Deee-Lite's "Who Was That", and a small part of MC Lyte's "Poor Georgie". The song was released as the album's fifth single. The song peaked at number five in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the fifth consecutive top-five single from The Dutchess. Fergie has also had five consecutive top 5 hits from a debut album on the ARIA Charts in Australia making her the first artist to do so since Delta Goodrem in 2003 with Innocent Eyes who had five consecutive number ones. Initially "Clumsy" was Fergie's least successful single, but later it was replaced by "Finally". "Here I Come" is a song produced and featured will.i.am. The track was released as a single in Australia in January 2008. It reached 22 on Australia Singles Chart and 122 on Billboard Hot 100. It was used on the commercials that advertised the debut of the new channel CW and in a Motorola Rockr commercial for Brazil and Portugal featuring Fergie. "Finally" is the sixth single from The Dutchess. It was sent to U.S. radio on February 26, 2008. It is the album's least successful single. It featured John Legend on piano.

Promotional singles[link]

"Party People" was released as the first single from Nelly's fifth studio album Brass Knuckles. The song is also a single from the Deluxe Edition of The Dutchess. It reached 40 in the USA and 14 in the UK.

"Labels or Love" is the second single from the Deluxe Edition of The Dutchess, and eighth overall. The song did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but in UK it reached 56. This is the last single from the album and a music video was filmed.

Critical reception[link]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
About.com	[7]
Allmusic	[8]
Robert Christgau	[9]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[10]
Now Magazine	(C)[11]
Prefix Magazine	[12]
Rolling Stone	[13]
Slant Magazine	[14]
Yahoo! Music	(B)[15]

Initial critical response to The Dutchess was mixed. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 58, based on 15 reviews, which indicates "average reviews". Andy Kellman from Allmusic gave to the album a rating of 2/5 stars and claimed that: "The Dutchess has all the characteristics of a release fronted by someone who has been itching to go solo and prove herself, once and for all, as a versatile force all her own". But that "The whole process, produced mostly by fellow Pea will.i.am, is mildly entertaining but tremendously taxing".^[16] A positive review came from Bill Lamb of About.com, who gave to the album a rating of 4/5 stars. He stated that "Fergie proves herself a skilled entertainer that can make you dance, laugh, nearly cry, and just have a really good time." He finished the review, saying that "The Dutchess is one of the top debuts of the year. Similar to Gwen Stefani's experience, this album is good enough to pull into question the wisdom of Fergie sticking with The Black Eyed Peas or considering striking out on her own.^[17] Another favorable review came from Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt' who say that "The Dutchess reaches further than most albums by contemporary divas."^[18] The Uncut review of The Dutchess was also positive, considering the album "One of the most rambunctiously entertaining and high-spirited records of 2006". Dan Gennoe from Dot Music was also favorable to the album, naming The Dutchess as an "exceptionally random R&B mixtape".^[19] Kathryn Perry from The Phoenix described The Dutchess as "An eclectic, danceable collection of hip-hop, R&B, and pop confections".^[20]

Chart performance[link]

The Dutchess debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 in the United States with sales of more than 150,000 in its first week.^[21] 51 weeks after its release, The Dutchess climbed to a new peak of number two in the U.S.^[22] In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 27 with 9,110 copies sold.^{[citation needed]} The song "Losing My Ground" was the upcoming single, though it was replaced for "Glamorous" for unknown reasons. In a matter of weeks it dropped out of the chart altogether until the success of "Glamorous" when the album shot up from 77 to 28. Again, after the success of "Big Girls Don't Cry", the album climbed to 19 and after dropping a few places, went back up to its number 18 peak. To date, the album has produced three Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits, including "London Bridge", "Glamorous", and "Big Girls Don't Cry", with "Fergalicious" peaking at number two. Fifth single "Clumsy" peaked at the number five on the chart. A remix of "Big Girls Don't Cry", which features Sean Kingston, became an iTunes-only single and the new song "Pick It Up" (which appears on the Japanese re-released edition of the album) will become a single in Japan.^{[citation needed]}

Track listing[link]

(*) Denotes vocal producer