It's been a while since Ginuwine put out anything, it seems like these days he mostly performs his old hits and pops up on reality shows or does weird stuff like endorsing a vodka-infused 'adult chocolate milk.' But he's got a pretty nice catalog, wanted to take a look back at his albums. 

1. Hello

2. G. Thang (featuring Missy Elliott and Magoo)

3. World Is So Cold

4. 550 What? (featuring Timbaland)

5. Wait A Minute

6. Toe 2 Toe

7. Final Warning (featuring Aaliyah)

8. Do You Remember

9. No. 1 Fan

10. That's How I Get Down (featuring Ludacris)

11. 2 Way

12. Big Plans (featuring Method Man)

13. Bedda Man

14. The Club (featuring Jadakiss)

15. Since I Found You (with Tommy Redding)

16. First Time

17. Without You

18. Weekend Love (with TGT)

Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Ginuwine...The Bachelor (1996)

Tracks 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 from 100% Ginuwine (1999)

Tracks 10 and 11 from The Life (2001)

Tracks 12 and 13 from The Senior (2003)

Track 14 from Back II Da Basics (2005)

Track 15 from I Apologize (2007)

Track 16 from Elgin (2011)

Track 17 from A Ginuwine Christmas (2011)

Track 18 from TGT's Three Kings (2013)

Ginuwine's debut came out a couple months after Aaliyah's One In A Million, and those albums really kicked off the whole Timbaland era. Obviously, "Pony" is Ginuwine's signature song and also a pretty important Timbaland track. And the Ginuwine...The Bachelor deep cuts "World So Cold" and "Ginuwine 4 Ur Mind" are notable as I think the only other times Timbo but that distinctive vocoder sound from "Pony" on different songs with different melodies. "G. Thang" features samples of D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar" and Portishead's "Numb." Brown Sugar, Dummy, and Ginuwine...The Bachelor are all game changer albums of the mid-'90s, so it's cool that one of them sampled the other two in the same track. I also really dig the album's hidden track, "550 What," which pays tribute to Ginuwine's hometown, Washington, D.C., and ends with a Go-Go groove and shoutouts to a lot of the great Go-Go bands. 

I think 100% Ginuwine is his masterpiece, though, it's just packed with hits and great deep cuts. I think it's up there with One In A Million and Aaliyah, Missy's first 3 albums, and Timbaland & Magoo's Welcome To Our World as the best Swing Mob/Supa Friends albums. I especially love the beat switch on "Do You Remember" where the sample from Queen's "Flash" comes in after that ridiculous mid-song skit. 

The Senior's Method Man collaboration "Big Plans" caught my attention because Ginuwine sings the whole song in AutoTune on its infamous 'zero setting.' Cher's "Believe" had obviously already been out for a few years in 2003, but it still surprised me to hear Ginuwine doing this 2 years before T-Pain's debut album changed everything and made flashy AutoTune the sound of mainstream R&B. 

Ginuwine worked much more sporadically with Timbaland after his first two albums, and while he proved he could make hits with other producers like "Differences" and "In Those Jeans," it definitely feels like a missed opportunity that he didn't work with Timbo steadily through their prime years. The Life only had one Timbaland track, "That's How I Get Down," which also had the album's only big name guest appearance, Ludacris. So it's kind of shocking that that song was never released as a single, it doesn't sound like a smash but it's pretty good. The Life also has "2 Way," an ode to then-trendy Motorola 2-way pagers co-written and co-produced with the great Raphael Saadiq. 

Ginuwine said he'd team with Timbaland on Back II Da Basics but the album wound up with no Timbo productions. By the time they Ginuwine, Timbaland and Missy reunited for the 2009 single "Get Involved," though, the magic was kind of gone. That album, A Man's Thoughts, was Ginuwine's only album for Warner Bros., and it's missing from streaming services now. 

Ginuwine's career tapered off after the mid-2000s. In 2007, Koch Records released I Apologize, sort of compilation of collaborations with unknown independent artists, but the title and cover art kind of misleadingly make it look like a Ginuwine solo album. And then in 2011 he released two independent albums, including a Christmas album with really bad production, and that was the last time he released a solo project. "First Time" from Elgin is one of Ginuwine's only self-produced songs, and the beat is pretty good, definitely feels like he picked something up from working with great producers for so many years. 

In 2013, Tank, Ginuwine and Tyrese released an album as TGT, an R&B supergroup pretty shamelessly patterned after LSG. The album was Ginuwine's biggest commercial success in a decade, but the group never followed it up and he hasn't released much of anything else since then. I guess he mostly just performs the hits these days. I'd love to see him in a Verzuz, though, maybe against Joe or Sisqo, or all three members of TGT in a 3-man Verzuz. That might be the only way Ginuwine really gets back in the spotlight these days, but the old stuff really holds up for me. 

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