By shelz.

Prior to listening to this album I decided I would do everything in my power not to mention the reason why Chris Brown’s career is in trouble right now. I think it’s important for a reviewer to try and separate art from the bad behavior of the artist.  While it may be that person’s fault (whatever “it” is,) it’s not the fault of the album.  Of course that creation was not concocted, nor does it exist in a vacuum but as a stand alone entity it deserves to be judged on its own particular merits.  But that’s only if the artist doesn’t go out of their way to marry the two, and artistically connect their life with their album.

Chris Brown has said all he has to say and you can either accept or decline. However, he didn’t say he was done singing about it. While this album is horribly scattered, it does have one recurring theme: woe is me.

Chris Brown and his melodramatic presentation as a casualty of a judgmental society is a little much.  It makes these songs where he cries victim a bit annoying at best, offensive at worst.  However, I asked the reviewer in me if that “thing” hadn’t happened earlier this year, would this be a great album? And the reviewer responded, “Not really.”

The album starts with the mildly infectious, Swizz Beats-produced ode to trickin,’  “I Can Transform Ya.” Yes, its “Upgrade You” for dudes.  No, it’s not one of Wayne’s best verses, but Swizz makes it funky and pretty much saves the day.

We move onto “Sing Like Me” which is a way more melodic and prettier version of “Every Girl.” So many chicks, so little time.  Having your pick of them all is what Chris is about in this song and they stroke his ego among other things as they sing his own songs to him after he takes them back to “the room.”  It’s a paint-by-numbers R&B scenario, but nicely arranged.  Plus it’s been in my head all day and I can’t say I mind. 

“Crawl” is the 2^nd single from the album and Brown’s key ballad.  His vocal performance over the severely synthetic pop track is good, but the production really holds this song back from being great.  It’s very generic and almost has a Muzak feel to it. The feeling of this song is a little more glass half full than empty but of course anyone trying to psychoanalyze CB from his lyrics will believe this is a reach out to that girl he used to date. The production on  “So Cold” is a bit better, but the lyrics start on their real downward spiral of lament and self pity on this track.  That concept continues with “Lucky Me” where he goes all in for your mercy. He has to smile even when he doesn’t want to.  He has to perform when he doesn’t feel like it.  People take pictures when he isn’t feeling particularly pretty.  It’s a rough life folks.

Then there is “Famous Girl.” The track is produced by the newly crowned King of Bland Ryan Leslie.  Chris’ performance on this song is just as tepid.  However, he keeps the listeners’ attention through his lyrics as he tells his “hypothetical” girlfriend that all the bad things he did to her were her fault because she cheated on him.  Then he suggests he shouldn’t have written said hypothetical girlfriend’s song, “Disturbia.” Sigh.

“Wait” with Game on the feature is a head nodder, but the high point of the album is “What I Do.” The Runners tossed CB some heat and he ran with it with Plies in tow.  It’s a catchy baller anthem and should have been the signature piece from which the rest of the album was built.  Instead Brown takes some precarious turns into techno, new wave, bad 80’s samples and corporate rock.  The sum of all of those divergent pieces is a serious lack of cohesion and general confusion.

Some of the content on this album is a step towards grown man-dom as CB tries to shed his cutie pie image by stepping the sex talk up from PG to R.  However, much of the rest of the album is a puerile attempt at saving face or a request that you feel sorry for him. That’s when he’s not experimenting with new sounds that seem inappropriate for him and his core audience in between the few true bangers he’s presented.  See what I mean, this album is all over the place and not in a good way

2.75 out of 5

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