*This is a review of the standard edition.

Legal woes and album delays aside, Chris Brown has managed to maintain strong interest in his sixth studio album, X, thanks to a brilliant lead single in “Fine China”.  With the album finally hitting stores, it comes as a surprise that “China” is nowhere to be found among the seventeen track standard edition, especially when it was originally slated to be a dual disc project. This is what hinders X: a quality over quantity thought process.  At seventeen tracks in length, including two useless interludes that do little to drive the album and five additional selections for the U.S. and Japanese deluxe editions respectively, X is often a bloated and exhausting listen.  What also does not help Brown’s cause is when more than half of the seventeen included songs range from bland to flat out mediocre.

From its onset (“Your body’s an isosceles/ And I’m just tryna try angles”), the mathematics based “Add Me In” was an accident waiting to happen.  It is both boring and unimaginative for anyone, let alone a musician on his sixth album.  Brown obviously got a two for one special for “Loyal” and the Akon-enlisted “Came To Do” from producer NicNac as the two compositions are constructed with little to no difference.  What makes things worse is that the group of deluxe edition tracks is worlds better than most of those included on the official album.  Thankfully, X is not all doom and gloom.

“Time For Love” serves as a lovey dovey radio single, a far cry from the misogynistic viewpoint displayed on “Loyal”, in time to make late summer noise.  Rick Ross and his Yogi Bear references aside, “New Flame” follows suit as a 2014 update to Usher’s 2008 club smash.  The aptly titled ballad “Autumn Leaves” continues the seasonal theme, established a melancholy aesthetic alongside Brown’s breezy vocals, before Kendrick Lamar drops a solid contribution while simultaneously attempting to sabotage it through vocal modification.  Each great record is followed by two lackluster outings and while Brown is at his best on up-tempo, radio friendly records, those moments are few and far between on X.

Highlights—Autumn Leaves/Do Better/New Flame/Time For Love

Skip—Add Me In/Came To Do/Loyal