F.A.M.E.

Chris Brown's fourth studio album, F.A.M.E., reached US stores on March 22, 2011, through Jive Records, the last record he made for the label before it was folded into RCA. The acronym stands for Forgiving All My Enemies, a title that framed the release as a comeback statement following the legal troubles that had shadowed his previous two years. Jive shipped a standard edition of 18 tracks, with a deluxe version adding four more.

The record is deliberately scattered. Brown and his A&R team assembled a production roster that included Timbaland, Diplo, Benny Benassi, The Underdogs, Kevin McCall, and Free School, then pointed the material at whatever was working on radio in 2010 and 2011: Eurodance on Yeah 3x, Miami bass and rapid-fire rap on Look at Me Now, four-on-the-floor house on Beautiful People, and a Michael Jackson-quoting slow jam on She Ain't You. Guests range from Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes to Justin Bieber, Ludacris, Wiz Khalifa, Big Sean, and Game.

Commercially the album did what it needed to do. It sold about 270,000 copies in its first week and gave Brown his first number one on the Billboard 200, a position it held for one week before Britney Spears' Femme Fatale took over. Reviews were mixed to positive, with most writers crediting the production and Brown's vocal range while complaining that 18 tracks of stylistic hopscotch made for a long listen. The Recording Academy gave it Best R&B Album at the 54th Grammy Awards in February 2012. [edit]