NOT A BOY, NOT YET A MAN should have been the subtitle to the special July episode of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16, in which Chris Brown, the Tappahannock, Va., triple-threat, celebrated his 18th birthday by hosting two concurrent New York parties: a private Off the Wall-themed gala for a star-studded adult crowd at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club and a public bash for kiddie fans at Avalon nightclub.
Brown is careful not to stray from that dual marketing strategy on Exclusive, the exuberant follow-up to his multiplatinum self-titled 2005 debut. He’s still the sensitive boy-next-door, earnestly pleading to girls on “Hold Up (Mr. Jones),” “Wait, wait a minute, I’m genuine with it / I ain’t trying to put no pimpin’ in it.” But on “Take U Down,” The Underdogs’ steamy Isley Brothers homage, Brown excels as streetwise lothario, bragging, “It ain’t my first time, but baby girl, we can pretend.”
The dueling personas work, thanks to bombastic production. Bryan Michael Cox’s rock-inspired epic “Fallen Angel” and T-Pain’s hilariously campy “Kiss Kiss” are sublime showcases for Brown’s punchy tenor. Will.i.am’s “Picture Perfect” boasts catchy schoolyard chants, but its awkward oscillation between synth stabs and barbershop harmonies never quite jells. Later, recycling their chord progressions from Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable,” Stargate delivers the sentimental guitar ballad “With U.” In the last seconds of that otherwise lilting ode to puppy love, Brown impulsively blurts out, “Ladies, I’m 18!”
Still, this is a transitional record, re-establishing Brown as a heartthrob while leaving teenyboppers behind. But while he’s credited as a co-writer on nearly every track, it’s still hard to identify what distinguishes Brown from, say, Omarion or Mario. While Justin Timberlake has tried to fill Michael Jackson’s shoes by experimenting with pop-soul structure, Brown has only Jackson’s electrifying dance moves and charisma — his music rarely feels as inspired. And so, though Exclusive skirts the sophomore slip-up, it leaves its protagonist uncertain: Ease on down the road, or look at the man in the mirror?
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