Chris Brown finally released his long-awaited fifth album Fortune yesterday, and while he never forgets to thank Team Breezy whenever he wins an award, he may need every last one of them since critics have not been so kind to his new album. My issue with Chris Brown is that he doesn't know if he wants to be a bootleg version of Michael Jackson or a poor man's Bobby Brown. Fortune comes off more like an identity crisis rather than a fully cohesive record.
Check out what the music critics had to say about the album, which has already placed #1 on iTunes below...
The Los Angeles Times: “In the search for great pop music that catches a glimpse of the future, Chris Brown’s new album, Fortune, is planted firmly in the here and now. A defiant, brash, glistening recording filled with state-of-the-art sounds and of-the-moment producers and songwriters, the album, while fresh in July 2012, feels stamped with a ‘use by’ date. This is due mostly to Brown’s reflex of curbing his creative impulses at nearly every turn, with a few killer exceptions, and showing a conservatism unbecoming such a self-styled renegade.”
The Washington Post: “That the world seems divided into three camps when it comes to Brown — those who will always hate everything he does, those who will always love everything he does, and those who have no idea who he is or what he does — frees him to do pretty much whatever he wants creatively. That position is what allowed him to produce 2011’s game-changer, F.A.M.E, where he ditched the no-longer-appropriate puppy-love songs and debuted edgier dance tracks and more mature R&B ballads. Fortune is no F.A.M.E — it sounds like it, sure, but doesn’t move Brown to any new ground musically.”
New York Daily News: The closest parallel to Brown’s particular twist would be Usher. Fortune follows the general strategy of Usher’s just-released Looking 4 Myself. Both butch up the star’s dance beats and broaden their sense of pop. But Brown’s does so with far better material. While he originally conceived Fortune as an extension of F.A.M.E., the new album turns out to be a more exciting and varied work. The harder cuts have more force than anything in Brown’s past, the softer ones, more sweetness. 3/5
Boston.com: “When Brown opens up, he’s the best version of himself. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of those songs to make Fortune, the 23-year-old’s fifth album, a must have… The album veers from hip-hop flavored party jams to electronic, pulsating tracks meant for laser light shows to more emotional fare. The album suffers from Brown’s cocky rap-talk and the computerized noises that drown out today’s dance songs.”
The Toronto Star: “…since Brown chooses to confront his past (violent) sins two tracks in on ‘Bassline’ with unapologetic bravado — ‘You’ve heard about my image/ But I could give a flying motherf— about who’s offended’ — it’s hard to feel anything but pity for the ladies who might fall prey to Fortune’s subsequent, mid-section run of mildly explicit, R. Kelly-esque boudoir come-ons.”
The New York Post: “There’s some good production and some decent songwriting scattered about Chris Brown’s fifth album, and it’s hard not to wish it had been expended on someone, anyone else.”
The Washington Times: “If he evoked a young Romeo on his early records, then the man who boasts, brags and barges his way through Fortune is more like a 20-something Lothario, with a dirty mind and an even filthier mouth. Never before has Brown sounded so carelessly graphic, like a high school football quarterback who dates the cheerleading captain and spills her intimate secrets to his teammates in the locker room.”
Chicago Sun Times: “You’re not likely to hear more soulless, contrived pop product all year.”
USA Today: Driving electronic grooves and hip-hop-fueled club jams will keep Brown on the radio all summer. Like him or not, he appeals to your urge to get up and move. 3.5/4
Entertainment Weekly: Fortune‘s lyrics largely focus on his favored themes: clubbing, getting women to take off their clothes, and swagginess. Plenty of accomplished R&B lotharios tread that territory, but Brown lacks R. Kelly’s commitment to fantasy or Usher’s raw-nerve honesty. C-
Chicago Tribune: Chris Brown’s fifth studio album, Fortune, is a pure-pop candy cane, meant to be enjoyed, consumed and forgotten. Thinking would ruin everything. At its best, it does its job very well—a mix of bangers and ballads as instant and insistent as anything on commercial radio. 2/4
The Boston Globe: Fortune is full of some of the most boilerplate R&B and urban pop to have been released this year. Strip away the million-dollar beats and the star cameos (including rappers Nas and Wiz Khalifa) and the album, his fifth in seven years, rings jarringly hollow.
Newsday: Fortune shows so much of the musical growth that his fans had long been expecting. Brown’s range has widened significantly, able to vocally tackle a straight-up R&B ballad like “Sweet Love” as well as the club anthems like “Turn Up the Music” that have been filling the charts. B
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