Bad word of mouth travels quickly indeed. After picking up mediocre to negative reviews from critics around the world, Animal Ambition had a pitiful 1st day of sales. It’s expected to sell less than 30,000 copies in a week, a huge bomb compared to his 2nd studio album’s 1.14 million copy first week (2005’s The Massacre). Still, that’s a pretty strong sum given its release through an independent label (50 Cent was previously signed to Interscope for 10 years). So what’s the real story behind Animal Ambition? I don’t know. It’s a bit hard to tell. With this new album, 50 Cent tried to come up with a Beyoncé inspired visual album. While that concept is fresh and could have worked nicely, Animal Ambition suffers because of its god-awful promotion. Releasing a new track every week doesn’t work (not even for Justin Bieber; 2013’s commercial flop Journals). The videos on this “visual experience” certainly help, but they all seem a bit fluffy, with no truly outstanding content. The songs have decent rhymes for sure but at one point or another, 50 Cent “sings” a chorus on every track. It feels forced. It’s not a terrible effort, but it feels like a slight disappointment when compared to other recent rap releases. However, I still don’t agree with other critics. I think that Animal Ambition deserves more than they’re giving it credit for. Hopefully the release of long delayed Street King Immortal will pump some more interest back into 50 Cent, but at least Animal Ambition wasn’t a complete bust. One of the album’s 9 promotional singles, “Smoke (feat. Trey Songz)”, debuts at #81 on the CDS Music Chart Hot 100.
Some of the major highlights from
Animal Ambition are "Hold On", "Pilot" and "Smoke (feat. Trey Songz)". Additionally, "Flip On You (feat. SchoolBoy Q)" also deserves some praise (unfortunately, it is only song to not have an accompanying video).
Rating: 68/100 (Fresh)
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