Comparing anyone to a musical talent the size of Michael Jackson is a huge feat to live up to, and whilst Chris Brown has repeatedly attempted to pay tribute to his idol - most noticeably with a World Music Awards performance impersonating that of Jacko's well-known 'Thriller' - the rising star himself still struggles to earn any kind of stature in the UK market. As always however there is a motive behind this review, and it's not to brainwash you all into submission that Chris Brown should be able to top our charts. My motive comes more to the recent breaking news of the 18 year-olds relationship with an umbrella salesmans favourite person, Rihanna, who is sitting pretty at two years Brown's senior as a global icon. For all those that want to see the pictures of the cute couple, scroll to the bottom of my review, but be sure to rejoin me for the second paragraph once you're done.

1. Throwed (3.01) ===* * * *===
2. Kiss Kiss ft. T-Pain (4.11) ===* * * * *===
3. Take You Down (4.05) ===* *===
4. With You (4.12) ===* * * * *===
5. Picture Perfect ft. Will.I.Am (4.12) ===* * *===
6. Hold Up ft. Big Boi (3.48) ===* * *===
7. You (3.22) ===* *===
8. Damage (4.16) ===* * * *===
9. Wall to Wall (3.48) ===* * * *===
10. Help Me (3.17) ===* *===
11. I Wanna Be (3.46) ===* * *===
12. Gimme Whatcha Got ft. Lil Wayne (3.48) ===* * *===
13. I'll Call Ya (3.53) ===* *===
14. Lottery (3.42) ===* *===
15. Nice ft. The Game (4.31) ===* * * *===
16. Down ft. Kanye West (4.17) ===* * * * *===
17. Get at Ya (3.18) ===* * *===
18. Mama (4.24) ===* *===
19. Fallen Angel (5.34) ===* * * *===

My initial impressions to his second release were not positive either, although as time went on I was shown just how wrong I was, and 'Kiss Kiss' featuring T-Pain went on to be his second US Billboard #1 staying there for three weeks. With summer coming to a close, this was a party track that gave you something to smile about in the awful weather, and had the distinctive radio style introduction and T-Pain vocals. 'Kiss Kiss' was without a doubt something that Chris Breezy had never tried become, and accomodated an older audience, including an official remix featuring hot in herre singer, Nelly. Whilst the video remained somewhat childish in having the singer dressed up as both a geek and jock, the song received honours of being MTV's essential R&B song of the year as well as charting at #48 in Rolling Stone's 100 best songs of 2007 across all genres.

"And I will never try to deny that you are my whole life, cause if you ever let me go I would die so I won't run" - Chris Brown

Pictures

Chris Brown and Rihanna in Paris

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From this young artists opening three singles we have already seen a wealth of possibilities, and when they realised that the old formula of his early career wasn't going to work they slammed him forward with a big R&B star. Then add to the mix a differing single release with that acoustic-guitar loop of 'With You', his biggest slow dance release, and you wonder what track he may pull out of the bag next. If internet reports are anything to go by, Chris Brown is set to allign himself with yet another big American music name with either the release of 'Down' featuring Kanye West or 'Picture Perfect' featuring Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas. My personal perogative would be for him to release 'Down', with a big name performed by his side it is likely to get him more recognition than ever, and whilst the track does go along the lines of the more rocky infulence we're seeing in R&B music lately (Timbaland working with The Hives, the success of Amy Winehouse) it does work as a standalone single. Will.I.Am on the other hand is someone I am waiting to see do something more than say he got it from his mother, and I grew tiresome of 'Picture Perfect' quickly. The fact that we could be looking at five or more single releases from 'Exclusive' shows why Rolling Stones did name it as their 34th best album of 2007, but also with a large track amount always in the twentys you would expect it to have almost the potential of a compilation album. I do expect that the management team behind Chris Brown figured that if anything went wrong with the quality at least they had the quanity there to make the pricetag.

"Chris Brown will always be mine ya'll got dat?" - chrisbrowngurl (fan)

'Throwed' works excellently as a lead track to the album, and interestingly it hasn't been pawned off as a single, which is always a good sign of strength in depth. Lil Wayne works with Chris again on this album, just as he did with the hit 'Gimme That' on his debut album, 'Gimme Watcha Got' is not exactly the same league though and Chris' work with larger stars has exposed Lil Wayne for not being the biggest star wanting to work with him. Big Boi is the last star to feature on the album, and 'Hold Up' is not at all memorable. Whilst it was good to see so many other names come in on 'Exclusive', luckily Chris does still express his talent on his own in some good songs not set for release yet, including 'Damage'.