Album Review: Chris Brown - Fortune

It seems that for some mainstream artists, if you have a loyal fan base then regardless of how bad your music is, you will probably still succeed. Chris Brown is testament to that fact. His latest album, Fortune, is a complete waste of time, money and energy. Mind-numbingly tedious, the album comprises of middle of the road melodies with Brown's almost trademark vulgar lyrics filling in the rest.

Lead single, Turn Up The Music, is pretty much as generic an rnb club song as you can get, and it's probably the best track on Fortune. From then on the album is one really tedious hour and 20 minutes of Brown objectifying women (Mirage, Strip) and boasting about how awesome he is (Bassline), and by the end of it you just want to zip his mouth shut and lock him away. There is no development through Fortune, and as you go from one pointless, lacklustre song to another, it is clear that Brown is the poster boy for an album created by many different people for the sole purpose of making money.

The areas in which Brown mildly succeeds on this album are in those songs that aren't as highly sexualised. If Brown created an album with more songs like Turn Up The Music and Don't Wake Me Up, this would be a completely different review. The problem is that it feels like Brown is scared of distancing himself too greatly from his bad boy image, and in Fortune, the album's few highs are followed by great lows as Brown once again delves into clichéd songs about having sex and being sexy.