1. This album hung around in the album charts for 94 weeks.
That’s a long time. If this album was a baby, it’d probably be old enough to speak in sentences by the time it exited the charts.
2. One word: Glamorous.
This song has everything. A music video where Fergie laughs at her old bandmates while drinking champagne on a private jet and enjoying her solo career? Check.
A rap verse, by someone who’s not typically a rapper, that is not cringey? Check.
A really fun music video that you could watch again and again? Check.
And to top all of that off… A line that people will still want to shout at the top of their lungs in a nightclub, more than ten years later? Check.
Every other pop album from 2006 onward may take their broke ass home.
3. Fergalicious
Similar merits to Glamorous, all while going in a completely different direction. This may not look like much now, but this video was pretty visually impressive and hard to tear your eyes away from back in 2006 before the internet had completely destroyed all of our brains.
Overwhelming and extremely colourful, this video still managed to have an edge that was not recreated sufficiently by those who attempted to copy this aesthetic several years later. Not naming any names, but it rhymes with Laty Berry.
4. London Bridge
Oh snap. Oh snap.
This song isn’t really even about London. If you haven’t thought about what this song is supposed to mean since it was released when you were a child, it’s time to pay a visit to Rap Genius.
Lewdness aside, it is still a timeless banger and was the lead single from The Dutchess. It also sounds really similar to many other bangers of the time – Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl, Lil Mama’s Lip Gloss and even a little bit like M.I.A.’s Galang.
How could a song that sounds like all of those songs mixed together NOT be good?
5. Big Girls Don’t Cry
You’d hardly believe this was from the same album.
Among a handful of calculated and well put together bangers, Fergie dropped this song that’ll undoubtedly be on Q102′s The Love Zone for as long as that radio station exists.
The Dutchess was the perfect album for young teenagers and club-goers, but she managed to sneak this song for mams onto the record and it’s hard to not like it. There’s character progression and maturity here that we wouldn’t expect until a second or third album. Yet, it perfectly fits with the rest of the album.
6. Clumsy
Admittedly, this is the worst single of the album, which says a lot because it’s really not a bad song. It still broke the top five, like all of the songs above. The Dutchess by Fergie seriously had five very diverse singles in the top five charts.
7. It’s timeless.
The only person who could have rivaled Fergie back then was Gwen Stefani, who in hindsight, was fairly racist with all of that weird infantilising Harajuku girl stuff. In comparison, The Dutchess has aged really well.
8. Fergie spent seven years making this album.
Part of the reason why the album is so diverse, and has withstood the test of time is because Fergie made all of the songs over a seven year period.
Some of the songs included in the brilliant pastiche that is The Dutchess were made before Fergie was even in the Black Eyed Peas and some were made on the tour bus while she was travelling the world with the band. A lot of love went into The Duchess.
9. She could have lived off of this album for the rest of her life.
How many pop-stars can squeeze five songs from their debut solo album into the top five? How many pop-stars get five songs in the top five in their entire career? Achievement-wise, you couldn’t ask for much more. Maybe a Grammy, if you’re greedy.
Fergie was indeed nominated for a Grammy for Big Girls Don’t Cry, but she lost to Amy Winehouse (which is nothing to be ashamed of – most people would have been honoured to lose to Amy Winehouse).
Eleven years after the release of The Dutchess, Fergie followed it up with Double Dutchess. She probably should have quit while she was ahead because it has yet to achieve the success of The Dutchess, but you’d forgive her because L.A. Love was a really good song.
