Chris Brown - Fortune Review

Chris Brown didn't need to be rehabilitated by the music industry, because it generally agreed that beating up his girlfriend was, you know, no big deal. Fortune is his latest record and it will sell like gangbusters, with the delightful Mr Brown appearing on mainstream TV shows and radio. His PR people ensure interviewers don't mention the unpleasantness. We're meant to focus on Brown's art and not his amateur woman-boxing career.

Brown's music is passable in its genre. He makes slick radio-friendly R&B bolstered by his ability to dance a bit like Jacko. Fortune is neither good nor bad; it is product. The issue is that we have a problem with Brown continuing to be able to hawk his product on such a grand scale through major labels when he so publicly attacked a woman and has failed to really change his ways, with repeated altercations and unpleasant incidents dogging his passage through life....full text On Fortune, Chris Brown is anxious to style himself as a lover, not a fighter. Like, really anxious - a good eighty percent of the album’s fourteen tracks detail his prowess as such in enough detail to make your mother blush. He’s got a Magnum in his wallet which he is not afraid to use, he sings, which for the more innocent British readers is not a half-melted ice cream but rather a popular American brand of prophylactic. Throughout the album he beds any number of ladies, none of whom express any particular concerns about the artist’s violent tendencies towards women even in the face of vaguely threatening come-ons like girl, you better not change your mind, with the benefit of silver-tongued wordsmithery like “wanna see your legs in the air, baby don’t worry about your hair”....full text Chris Brown finds himself in a similar position as the last release, this time dealing with public scrutiny over his alleged involvement in a club brawl in NYC. Where F.A.M.E. was able to go above and beyond to earn the respect of new fans, Fortune falls short. True to the saying, seems Fortune just comes with F.A.M.E., providing nothing to stamp it as it's own major body of work. In fact, many of the songs sound like they just missed the cut for F.A.M.E. Can't knock him for giving the people what they want I guess.

Rapping Chris and Pop aside, the album is good. That's why I start the album towards the end of track 4, "Mirage." The song features Nas, with the only respectable Rap verse on the album, although Wiz Khalifa, Big Sean and Brown all try and fall short on the album's previous track, "Til I Die." Nas provides a perfect beginning for where the album should begin. ...full text