Chris Brown - Graffiti download free

The kindest thing I can say about this album is that it's a product of its time. A time Chris Brown would have better spent getting his affairs in order than putting out records. It's the sort of album that could only have come from someone who fell out of the public favor and had put no effort into understanding why. The fun begins with "I Can Transform Ya," the lead single. Many of the trailblazers in hip-hop pushed the genre into dissonant, sometimes discordant territory, and this song tries to follow in their footsteps. However, a compulsive urge to keep it safe and marketable undoes it completely. The result is a grinding, repetitive number whose only real novelty lies in how baffling Lil' Wayne's guest verses are. It's an apt summary of everything that follows--whenever the album isn't outright obnoxious or unadventurous to the point of being impersonal, it's jaw-dropping for all the wrong reasons. Pity Ryan Leslie, that his beautiful, breakbeat-lead electro trunk rattler backs the self-indulgent "Famous Girl," an exposé on Brown's relation with Rihanna which plays out more like a diss track. He spouts such lines as "watch the blogs talk about this one" and "But then again, I'm famous, girl/I've broken my share of hearts" inbetween shoehorned references to other musicians. These range from trite (Ye would have said you're so Amazing/So how could you be so Heartless, girl) to eyebrow-raising (Keri would have said my love Knocks Her Down). Pity Free School, that Brown squanders his euphoric dancefloor jam on "I.Y.A.," thirteen bars worth of completely throwaway lines. Pity Ester Dean, that the hack autotune job on that track forces her voice into the highly uncomfortable territory between man and machine. And pity the audience, that the climax of this album is the one-two-punch of "Lucky Me" and "Falling Down." In this diptych, Brown bewails the ravages of his tremendous fame whilst simultaneously glorifying it. On the former, Brown is unsympathetic at best, acting as if private jets, household name status and unfathomable avarice aren't worth having to play a concert on a bad day. In the latter, he goes from unrelatable to outright contemptible. He rattles on about hiding his emotions, wanting companionship, feeling under pressure, and not wanting companionship as though these weren't very common experiences, then accuses the world of unduly bearing him down. But the album saves the best for last, however little that says, with the closer "I'll Go." Also of note: it's the only track on the album Brown didn't co-write. It actually has a few alright lines, but for each one there's an outright baffler to undo it (e.g. "Found my heart in the palm of your hand/Now you're good, that's yours/If you don't want it I won't understand/'Cause I came so far). At least since the songwriters were the producers, they were able to put out a backbeat Chris' performance could match. This album is, to be frank, an absolute train wreck. On even a cursory listen, it's obvious this was recorded and spat out hot on the heels of one of Brown's biggest PR disasters. It's even more obvious just how badly he was handling it all. I really can't recommend this to anyone who didn't already decide the moment they saw his name on the cover.