Jamie Foxx
Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses
Release Date: May 18, 2015
Genre(s): R&B, Contemporary R&B
Record label: RCA
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Album Review: Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses by Jamie Foxx
Acceptable, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 3/5
Jamie Foxx's music has always come with the effortless charisma you'd expect from an Oscar winner. His fifth album balances bumptious party fare (the Pharrell-produced "Tease," the Eighties R&B glide "Baby's in Love") with dark-tinted slow jams like "You Changed Me," where he goes croon-for-croon with Chris Brown, and "Text Message," which builds a glassy hook out of a list of suggestive emojis. Foxx's last album, in 2010, was a cork-popping party stacked with superstar cameos.
Based on rating C+
Justifiably more focused on his acting these days, Jamie Foxx has stepped away from the forefront of popular music for a while. You’d even be forgiven for expecting some rustiness on his fifth and latest album. But the heights of Foxx’s music career are too recent — and, in many cases, too good — to fade from memory just yet. Beginning with his “Slow Jamz”/”Gold Digger” days (if not Peep This, his 1994 debut), continuing with “Blame It”, and on to his best LP, 2010’s Best Night of My Life, we’ve known that Foxx has legitimate musical talent.
Based on rating 4/10
After the 2010 release of Best Night of My Life, Jamie Foxx put his music career to the side for the longest period since 2005's Unpredictable. When he returned in 2014 with "Party Ain't a Party," a collaboration with DJ Mustard and 2 Chainz, it was clear he was content to play the same role in R&B, as a partying loverman with winking punch lines, singing about shawties, booties, and twerking. The song didn't stick enough to make either the standard or the deluxe versions of Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses.
Opinion: Average
Jamie Foxx doesn’t need this — at this point, his music career is mainly a vanity project, a lie he’s trying to keep up, and not even an interesting one. He’s an often excellent actor, from his Oscar-winning turn in “Ray” to “Django Unchained” to “Collateral,” and yet despite those gifts, he hasn’t been able to nail the role of essential R&B singer. It’s been almost five years since Mr.
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