Curtis

50's new album is a blatant rehash--a bottom-line sequel that insults the same audience it mindlessly panders to.

It's a solidly above-average rap record, featuring a generous handful of very likeable songs and only two unqualified duds.

The I-need-love pop tunes are not getting any better, even with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake in the stripper ditty 'AYO Technology.' 'Follow My Lead” is an inexplicable Robin Thicke duet and 'Amusement Park' is even sillier. Much better is 'All of Me,' with Mary J. Blige. Wailing, "I got a feeling like I'm fiending on crack," Blige steals the show without even trying.

He's still capable of cranking out a great single and the occasional clever verse, but he's yet to master the art of making a satisfying album rather than delivering a random assortment of demographic-pandering tracks.

In the end, Curtis is nothing more than a competent corporate product. [21 Sep 2007, p.84]

50 doesn't fare any better on the softer side: 'Amusement Park' proves he's one of the worst lyricists alive.... It's not just the metaphors, though, it's the execution.

50 is back with his larger-than-life persona and even bigger Mack 11, remaking his classic first album for the second time, with tiresome results.

A 55-minute mess called Curtis, undoubtedly one of this year’s worst releases.

'My Gun' is one of the best tracks Fifty's lent his name to; Adam Deitch and Eric Krasno's skilful production keeps the tension bubbling just below the surface with a muted hard rock guitar riff; 50's rhyme and flow is more varied and expressive than his usual monotone drawl.... The remainder of the album is as inconsistent as Fifty’s career to date.

What's missing where these lame boasts exist in Curtis is the vulnerability of moments on The Massacre (especially 'A Baltimore Love Thing') or any of the rich narrative that graced his first album, not to mention any of the goofy, sing-along catchiness that previously made his singles chart events. Musically 50's collaborators don't feel like they've brought anything near their best to the table.

Curtis seems surprisingly modest. The album is neither as contagious as "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" (apparently it's possible to have an entire album stuck in your head) nor as devious as "The Massacre."

50 sounds redundant.

Though the album is good, for an artist of 50 Cent's caliber, it's not great.

Curtis doesn't sound like it was much fun to make, and it isn't much fun to listen to.

There isn’t an ounce of life in Curtis.

It's unfortunate that "Interscope Jackson" spends so much time here trying to ply believable tough talk--highlights arrive when Fiddy embraces his current, lavish lifestyle.

It's a solid performance, that is both better and worse than it could have been.

Curtis is stuffed with tightly wound 21st-century pop songwriting, full of that invisible craft and flow that renders a thing eminently listenable even if it's gratuitously raunchy, politically reprehensible, and sexually retrograde.

Nothing on Curtis is great, but everything is listenable or better.

Shooting people, no-strings-attached sex and being a millionaire has never sounded so boring.