10/08/2025
What’s your favorite song from this classic? 👇🏾
29 years ago today, Ginuwine released his debut album Ginuwine…The Bachelor.
Dropped October 8, 1996 through 550 Music/Epic, the album was produced almost entirely by Timbaland, engineered by Jimmy Douglass, and featured background vocals from Playa (Static Major, Digital Black, and Smokey). Missy Elliott and Magoo also appeared, marking this as one of the cornerstone Swing Mob projects.
The lead single “Pony” — with its unorthodox synth-bassline and stop-start drums — shot to #6 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the R&B charts, turning both Ginuwine and Timbaland into household names. Follow-up singles “Tell Me Do U Wanna,” “I’ll Do Anything/I’m Sorry,” “Holler,” and his Prince cover “When Doves Cry” extended the run well into the late ‘90s.
But for diehard fans, the gems are deeper: “Lonely Daze” sampling The Stylistics, the haunting “G. Thang” flipping Portishead and D’Angelo, and “Only When Ur Lonely” with its raw late-night vulnerability. These cuts showed Ginuwine wasn’t just chasing hits — he was carving his own lane.
The album peaked at #26 on the Billboard 200, went Double Platinum by 1999, and stands as a blueprint for futuristic R&B: classic soul vocals over Timbaland’s forward-thinking production. Nearly three decades later, it’s still one of the most important debuts of the ‘90s.