Graffiti (Deluxe Version)

Chris Brown started work on Graffiti in 2008, but the album’s course changed — along with everything else in his life — in February 2009, when Brown’s physical attack on Rihanna ignited a media firestorm that threatened to derail his career. The excellent “I Can Transform Ya,” “What I Do” and “Wait” exemplify Brown’s talent for futuristic, club-oriented R&B, and show what the album would have looked like had the Rihanna incident never happened. Regardless, the most crucial songs on Graffiti are those that address the assault. In “Crawl,” “So Cold,” “Famous Girl” and “Fallin’ Down” Brown speaks directly to Rihanna, and to his credit, he manages to express anguish, regret, and affection in a way that he hadn’t been able to in interviews. The closing song, “Gotta Be Ur Man,” is overbearing and desperate, and Graffiti is better ended with “I’ll Go,” which strikes the proper tone of acceptance and love: “If I don't come back, girl your love was worth it, that's the one thing I know / And if I don't make it back, girl remember that I said I'd go.”