You “Aughta” Know... Paris Hilton, PARIS

Welcome back to “You ‘Aughta’ Know,” where we take a look back at an album from the 2000s that was released on or around this day. In this instance, our topic du jour is – at least as of this writing – the only studio album ever to be released by Paris Hilton.

Yes, you read that correctly...and even though you might read this next bit and be convinced that you must’ve read it wrong, it’s true: this album is actually pretty great.

In 2003, when she was knee deep in the middle of working on her reality show, The Simple Life (and given that its first season of the series took place on a farm, she was probably knee deep in other stuff, too), Hilton made it known that she was moving forward on an album. Teaming with Romeo Antonio, she recorded half a dozen tracks, and the following year she worked with producer Robb Boldt and N*SYNC member J.C. Chasez on some further demos. It was right around then that Hilton also found herself gifted with a new tune to record for the album – “Screwed,” written by Greg Wells and Kara DioGuardi – and it was also reported that Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s was working with Hilton, ostensibly on a cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.”

“Screwed” made it onto PARIS. The “Heart of Glass” cover did not, although Hilton’s version of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” did make the cut. In addition, the album featured Fat Joe and Jadakiss collaborating with Hilton on a song called “Fightin’ Over Me,” but as it happens, none of the songs we’ve mentioned were actually released as singles from the album.

The first single, “Stars Are Blind,” turned out to be a surprisingly big hit for Hilton, topping the US Dance Singles chart, making it to #18 on the Billboard Hot 100, and hitting #5 on the UK Singles chart. The follow-up single, “Nothing in the World,” also hit #1 on the US Dance Single chart, but the third single, “Nothing in This World,” only made it to #12, and – perhaps unsurprisingly – no further singles followed.

Actually, that’s not entirely true: Hilton did release a few more non-album singles after that, but for better or worse, there was to be no full-length follow-up to PARIS. Still, it’s a solid dance-pop album, and beyond that, it’s a perfect pop culture artifact of the ‘00s.