Its Gattaca by way of JNCO Jeans cover art notwithstanding, I get the queasy feeling that Chris Brown's Graffiti will be moving big numbers when it ships December 8th. So take note, Ben Gibbard: if you want to beat the shit out of Zooey*, apparently six months community service and a viral wedding video is all the recompense needed to get you back in the public's good graces. The site here took a little heat when discussing the death of Ike Turner a few years back, specifically for calling into question the veracity of rape claims made in Tina Turner's autobiography. Here's the thing, though: Chris Brown is no Ike Turner. Fine for summertime pop, the boy's no innovator- and the fuck a track with paid promotion for a gum company is ever making an appearance at my wedding.

Brown, like Rihanna, is less an R&B dynamo than a vessel for timely production, and their careers will be remembered best for those they shared the studio with. Ri Ri (AAHHHH HA HA "Ri Ri") has been nothing short of a muse to The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, and Brown's output under T-Pain, Swizz Beatz, and Polow da Don will most likely be the sound imitated in bad "whoa, the 2000s" sitcom flashbacks thirty years from now.

Of course by then, television will be wirelessly beamed to the retina, music will be drinkable, and man will be forced to live in Dyna-Glass domicile pods in order to shield our minds from exposure to the man-made, madness inducing "ninth color".

Ups to P. Smitty for the Portuguese treatment. (Small catalogue, but his calm "Ice Logos" comes highly recommended too.)

P. Smitty "Kuduro Kiss" (Buraka Som Sistema vs. Chris Brown Feat. T-Pain)

*I kid. Please beat up Adam Young.