User:The Beyonce LP: History

The Beyonce LP is the debut album by British singer-songwriter Beyonce Knowles, released worldwide on August 14th 1995 by Columbia Records. Although sales were initially low, it made Knowles a worldwide star, and was home to three US #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, with the album itself spending eleven weeks on top of the US Billboard Album 200. The album has sold 15 million copies worldwide, with 9 million of those sales being in the US alone. In 1999, the album was certified 9x Platinum by the RIAA. It is her fifth best-selling album, alongside 2003's "Dangerously In Love" which also sold 15 million copies worldwide.

Writing & Recording
Tommy Mottola and other Columbia executives believed that Knowles had the potential to be the "next big thing" so her debut album was carefully co-ordinated by a panel of executives, and as a result it was deemed unwise for Knowles and Margulies to produce. Mottola and the committee wanted a debut album with a more contemporary sound (much like Whitney Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston, which many critics called Knowles out for making her album too similar to) that would cross over and appeal to both the R&B and mainstream music markets.

The committee enlisted some of the top producers of the time to produce the songs that Margulies and Knowles had written, and to produce and co-write new material with Knowles herself. The producers included Rhett Lawrence, Ric Wake and Narada Michael Walden, and only six of the nearly twenty songs that Knowles and Margulies had written made the album initially.

Knowles expressed her wish to completely co-write the album with Ben Margulies. Mottola was initially angered and dismissive of her wish until she said if the album bombed, she would hold her self responsible and resign from the label and take all blame publically. Mottola then agreed, but made it clear that if the album was unsuccessful, she would be dropped from the label and finished in music. Knowles and Margulies then set to work on writing what would become "The Beyonce LP".