Well, this month of March has truly been madness. We have the madness of Charlie Sheen that has turned him into a cult star (you’re welcome), the madness of well, March Madness (VCU?! Butler returning to the Final Four?! No #1 seeds??!?!? Oh well, shoutout to Arizona for knocking out Duke!), and the madness of only two articles released on the NU so far this month. (and even less comments… where are you people, seriously?)
And then there’s Chris Brown. Chris Brown released his fourth album this past week, F.A.M.E. You can tell by the setup of this article, I’m not here to talk about the music on the album. (Even though the track “No BS” is certified for 3am.) I’ll enlist the AP to tell you about how good his morning was in America on the day the album came out:
Yeah. At least Virginia Commonwealth University is taking attention away from Chris with their Final Four run this week! (What’s that, they’re not? They should! They barely made the tournament! They were in the First Four! Oh, I have only a half hour to release this? Point taken.)
(We thought that ) Chris Brown has come a long way from 2009 (not sure what was worse, his um, breakup with Rihanna or the fail of damage control that was Graffiti), which is when I wrote the following in the March 2009 MADDSKILLZ Update:
I have plenty to say about the situation involving Chris Brown and Rihanna on my own though! For one, Chris Brown is a man, and that’s it! I usually do not get biblical in the MADDSKILLZ Update, but Romans 3:23 says that, “For all have sinned, all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” In laymen’s terms, all of us have (and will) screw up. So why are we so damn shocked and surprised that Chris Brown beat his equally famous girlfriend, as if celebrity domestic violence doesn’t exist?!? Just because Chris Brown sings on some high-culture level, it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of some darkness. In fact, when I heard about it, my first reaction wasn’t “oh my stars, what in the name of Ludacris happened to Chris Brown?!”
It was “First Ike and Tina, then Bobby and Whitney, and now Chris and Rihanna.” The main difference, of course, is that we KNEW Ike Turner and Bobby Brown had a little “wild and crazy” in them. Chris’ problem is that he’s too clean! That’s why his music is currently off the radio! People aren’t used to a violent Chris Brown. Likewise, they held his relationship with Rihanna to idealistic standards that were doomed to be a disappointment. Of course, it didn’t have to turn to such drastic measures. And what Chris Brown did to Rihanna is quite drastic and it puts both of them under the microscope for the duration of the relationship; in Chris Brown’s case, possibly the duration of his career. Nobody had a clue that he had it in him, and now he has drawn the negative attention of reformed pimp Jay-Z (who “discovered” Rihanna some five years ago)! This will be an interesting pay-per-view! But I doubt it ends happily ever after.
Inspiration.
Before...
...After
Well, Chris Brown still can’t bear to think of Tina-Rihanna right now. In fact, asking Chris Brown about Rihanna is the closest that he’s come to trying the Charlie Sheen drug, and while his body didn’t quite explode, his shirt and the window at Good Morning America might as well have.
At least Chris didn't drop a bottle of peroxide on his head... oh wait.
Chris Brown turned the hair back to black, but dude has to stop wilding out like a sober, male-version of Amy Winehouse or he’s going to be one wack album from never being taken seriously again. By most accounts, F.A.M.E. is not going to be that wack album. And at least fans (and enemies) can’t be surprised by his outbursts at this point. But at some point, he’s going to have to develop two things: stability and identity. Simply for the fact that you only get one album to declare that “Fans Are My Everything” and that you have “Forgiven All My Enemies”! Like the song says Chris, “don’t you be on that BS”… or F.A.M.E. might stand for “Forgot About Music Entirely”!
-1SKILLZ