Fortune (Chris Brown)

Fortune is Chris Brown's fifth studio album that was released on July 3, 2012 by RCA Records.
==Tracklisting==
#Turn Up The Music	3:47
#Bassline	3:58
#Till I Die (featuring Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa)	3:56
#Mirage (featuring Nas)	4:17
#Don't Judge Me	4:00
#2012	4:08
#Biggest Fan	3:59
#Sweet Love	3:19
#Strip (featuring Kevin McCall) 2:47
#Stuck On Stupid	3:58
#4 Years Old	3:49
#Party Hard / Cadillac (Interlude) (featuring Sevyn)	5:14
#Don't Wake Me Up	3:42
#Trumpet Lights (featuring Sabrina Antoinette)	3:47
==Album Background==
In an interview with Rap-Up magazine on September 2, 2011, Kevin McCall revealed that he had been collaborating "heavily" with Chris Brown on the album.
Later that month, producer David Banner told NeonLimeLight.com that the album will "bring people back to the clubs" and that it will "change the way people look at R&B."
He also revealed details of a song that he and Brown recorded for the album, saying: "When I tell you, you know how they don't play that much R&B in the club no more? ... The song that me and Chris made, they are going to play it like they used to play Jodeci. Like they used to play Keith Sweat. The song that me and Chris made is so jamming".
On January 7, 2012, Brown revealed via his official Twitter account that there was only two weeks left of recording sessions for the album, tweeting: "LAST TWO WEEKS of me finishing FORTUNE! I'm excited for all the fans to hear my real music".
The tweet was soon followed up by another, with Brown tweeting: "Dub step records on my album sounding crazy!!!!"; however, the tweet was later removed, suggesting that he gave away too much details about the album.
In addition to recording, it was revealed later that month that Brown was in the studio working on the album with Asher Roth, Nas, Wiz Khalifa, will.i.am, and Kid Sister.
On January 20, 2012, Brown announced that Nas will appear as a guest vocalist on the album.
In an interview with MTV News, producer Harvey Mason, Jr., half of production duo The Underdogs, who co-wrote and co-produced "Turn Up the Music", spoke more about the album, saying: "The Fortune record is F.A.M.E to the next level. Similar material, but he's really being innovative with some of the music that you haven't heard before, taking pieces of other genres and integrating them into pop and R&B, which I think is really cool. Vocally, he sounds amazing; he's really, really coming into his own as a singer." 
Producer Damon Thomas (the other half of the duo) added: "The only way I can describe Chris and what he's doin' with this record that he's making is that he's this generation's Michael [Jackson]".
On February 29, 2012, Brown tweeted "I hope this album shows growth and positivity to all my fans and will inspire them to live life to the fullest!!! #FORTUNE".
During a radio interview with Atlanta's Hot 107.9 in March 2012, rapper 2 Chainz revealed that he will be appearing as a guest vocalist on the album; however the track he was featured on did not make the final track listing.
In May 2012, songwriter and producer William Orbit revealed that the best songs he made for Madonna's album, "MDNA" that didn't make the final track listing would be included on the album.
==Chart Performance==
"Fortune" debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 135,000 copies, giving Brown his second number-one album on the chart.
However, the first-week sales for the album were less than those of Brown's previous album, "F.A.M.E." (which debuted at #1 with 270,000 copies sold).
The album was certified platinum by the RIAA in March of 2016; as of September 2012, it has sold 303,600 copies.
==Critical Reception==
"Fortune" received generally negative reviews from music critics, with the lyrical content being negatively received by most of them. Despite the negative reception, some critics praised the production. 
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 38, based on 14 reviews.
AllMusic's Andy Kellman criticized the album's lyrics as "shameless" and found "few dimensions" in its music, calling it "an album of unapologetic swashbuckling" that is "saved ... from being a disaster" by some of its production.
Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly found the songwriting perfunctory and commented that the album "furthers the uncomfortable and frustrating disconnect between Brown's hotheaded personal life and his oddly edgeless musical persona".
Jon Caramanica of The New York Times criticized Brown's "brazenness" and stated: "Listening to Mr. Brown at the deepest level balances aesthetic pleasures, when they happen, with superegolike self-protection against aligning oneself too closely with someone who's done such heinous things".
Hermione Hoby of The Observer panned the album's songs as "ugly stuff".
David Amidon of PopMatters panned its misogynistic lyrics and found the album, "to the sober mind", "another overload of poor decisions just as Brown's previous two albums have been".
Melissa Lockers of Time called it "one of the blandest R&B albums in recent memory" and wrote that it "feels like Chris Brown’s musical equivalent of a honeymoon phase, except for the fact that it's completely remorseless".
Evan Rytlewski of The A.V. Club criticized Brown's "no apologies mantra" and called the album "the unmistakable work of the same petty, violent-tempered hardhead that the tabloids have documented so well".
Mic Wright of musicOMH used his review of the album as a forum on Brown's public controversies and stated, "Fortune is the kind of record that will please Brown's many deluded female fans, but we cannot with good conscience give it a single star".
James Reed of The Boston Globe complimented "Don't Wake Me Up" as "a thumping club cut that's irresistible on an otherwise forgettable album".
Barry Walters of Spin commented that, apart from "Don't Wake Me Up", the album "makes it easy for Chris Brown's haters and harder on his many fans", writing that "there's more than the usual number of midtempo ballads that once again mix sex-fantasy titillation with his now-familiar toxic defensiveness".
Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot called the album "a pure-pop candy cane, meant to be enjoyed, consumed and forgotten", commenting that "thinking would ruin everything" and "its mixture of smut, vulnerability, menace and dancefloor celebration tells us next to nothing about what is going on between Chris Brown's ears, which is probably for the best".
In a moderately positive review, Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times likened the album's trendy musical style to a product's shelf life and attributed it 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".
Category:2010s albums
Category:R&B
Category:Pop
Category:Chris Brown albums