50 Cent Album The Massacre
Muredac Ford
The Massacre is the second studio album by American rapper 50 Cent. Originally scheduled for a March 7, 2005 release, it was ultimately released on March 3, 2005, via Interscope Records, Eminem's Shady Records, 50 Cent's G-Unit Records, and Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. With production from Dr. Dre, Eminem, Scott Storch, Sha Money XL and others, the album features guest appearances from G-Unit affiliates Tony Yayo, Olivia, Eminem and Jamie Foxx.
Supported by the singles "Disco Inferno" and the hit "Candy Shop" before release, the album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 1.15 million copies in its first four days and staying atop for six weeks after its release. The Massacre received generally positive reviews from music critics upon release.
The original title for the album was revealed as The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (titled after the 1929 North Side, Chicago murder spree of its gang) and 50 Cent intended it to be released on February 15, 2005, but Interscope was not interested. He would then leak Disco Inferno in order to force their hand, which ultimately resulted in the album being scheduled for a March 7 release.[2]
Originally, songs intended for the album included "Hate It or Love It", "How We Do", "Higher", "Church for Thugs" and "Special" but the songs were eventually given to the Game's The Documentary, causing a majority of The Massacre to be reworked.[3]
After 50 Cent released the Game from his G-Unit Records imprint on live radio February 21, 2005, a shootout occurred.[4] Paul Rosenberg of Shady Records and Jimmy Iovine of Interscope worried that the album would underperform due to the negativity of the Hot 97 shooting. 50 and the Game later entered into a truce six days after The Massacre was released,[5][6] but their animosity rose up again after Game made fun of G-Unit at Hot 97's annual Summer Jam, where he first launched the G-Unot phrase, later turning to a boycott.[7]
The censored version of the album censors out most profanity, violence, and all drug content. The track "Gunz Come Out" has inconsistency in the editing, and contains some profanity. The opening intro removes the shooting sequence, and is cut down to 20 seconds. The album cover also removes guns in the background behind the rapper, being replaced by motifs and a gradient background.[8] In comparison, the album is not as heavily censored as his previous album Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003).[9]
With a release in the middle of the sales week, The Massacre sold 1.15 million copies in its first four days of release, becoming the sixth-largest opening week for an album at the time since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.[10] This is the second largest opening week for a hip hop album, behind Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP (2000), which sold 1.76 million copies in its first week.[11] In February 2020, The Massacre was certified six times platinum for combined sales and album-equivalent units of at least six million copies in the United States.[12] It has sold over eleven million copies worldwide.[13][14]
In 2005, The Massacre was ranked as the number one album of the year on the Billboard 200.[15] The album fell off after being Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi hit number one.[16]
The Massacre received generally positive reviews from music critics; it holds a score of 66 out of 100 at Metacritic.[17] Vibe magazine found it "full of finger-pointing panache" and wrote that "50 delivers a taut, albeit less explosive, album aimed at both silencing his detractors and keeping the ladies satisfied".[28] NME observed "a new depth to the murderous lyricism" from 50 Cent on the album.[23] Greg Tate, writing in The Village Voice, said that, like Tupac, 50 Cent is "a ruffian who knows the value of a good pop hook", and called The Massacre "the most diabolically sensous collection of baby-making gangsta music since Pac's All Eyez."[29] Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times found the album to be "nearly as addictive as its predecessor" and called 50 Cent "a crafty songwriter, specializing in obvious but nearly irresistible tracks that sound better the more you hear them."[30] In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said that 50 Cent's "ugly gangsta lies" are "incidental to the mood of the piece, which is friendly, relaxed, good-humored, and in the groove."[27]
In a mixed review, Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club said that, although its strengths lie in 50 Cent's "dark charisma" and "fluid delivery", the album is marred by flaws typical of "big rap releases: At nearly 78 minutes, it's far too long, wildly uneven, and not particularly cohesive sonically or thematically."[31] Uncut magazine wrote that, despite 50 Cent's "cool menace", "not even tight productions from Eminem and Dre can stop things from flagging midway."[32] Lynne D. Johnson of Spin felt that it lacks "originality" and makes artistic concessions: "He's tryin' too hard to be everything to everybody."[26] In a negative review for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis panned him as a lyricist and felt that the album lacks "any of the factors that make the best gangsta rap disturbingly compelling ... There's nothing except a string of cliches so limited that repetition is unavoidable".[21]
The Massacre was nominated at the 2006 Grammy Awards for Best Rap Album,[33] but lost to Kanye West's Late Registration.[34] It was ranked the twenty fifth best album of the year by Rolling Stone.[35]
The album was re-released on September 6, 2005 as the Special edition. It included a remix of "Outta Control" featuring Mobb Deep, which replaces the original version of the song as track eight. This edition included a bonus DVD with music videos for a majority of the album's tracks (with the exclusion of "Disco Inferno", "Gunz Come Out" and the intro), and the trailer for the film Get Rich or Die Tryin', which released two months later. Due to the ongoing feud between 50 Cent and The Game, this version omits the G-Unit remix to "Hate It or Love It" as the twenty-second track. Once the special edition was released, The Massacre re-entered the top three of the Billboard 200 at number two, being blocked from number one by Kanye West's Late Registration.[97] The original version was also re-issued using the special edition track listing leaving out the parts for the DVD.
Clued in by an intro skit in which a sweet-sounding young damsel receiving a Valentine gets blasted by bullet-spray, we get it: 1) He's rich, and 2) He'll get you first. This is 50's massacre, no mercy. Scarface is in da club. It's followed by a series of guttural threats and luggish offerings to snuff anyone to save face-- "y'all know what I'm about," 50 reminds us more than once. And in case we don't, he hits us with indelible, existential gloom, especially on "This is 50"'s ominous piano plinking and the funereal low-end synths of "I'm Supposed to Die Tonight", where his warnings are cut directly from mobster cinema: "Don't be stupid, find out who you fuckin with, son/ 'Fore we find out where yo' bitch get her hair and nails done/ It's elementary, life is but a dream/ You know, row row your boat/ Your blood forms a stream."
50 answered it in 2005 with his G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath sophomore album, The Massacre, which scored a whopping 1.15 million copies sales within five days. At that time, nobody but Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) and The Eminem Show (2002) came close to 50's numbers.
It's been 15 years since then, but with singles like Candy Shop and Disco Inferno, The Massacre is still worth every listen. Here are some of the facts, besides the sales, about 50 Cent's 2005 album, The Massacre.
50 took the inspiration for the album's title; hence you'll hear 'Happy Valentine's Day' on the album's intro. The Massacre was initially titled St. Valentine's Day Massacre and intentionally released on Valentine's Day in 2005, but the label decided to shorten it.
On the album's fifth track, Piggy Bank, 50 continued taking shots at his rivals Ja Rule, Fat Joe, and Jadakiss, "That fat n*gga thought Lean Back was In da Club / My sh*t sold eleven 'mills, his sh*t was a dud." Even though it was never released as a single, Piggy Bank made it to the Billboard 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts for its controversy.
"I actually went to my grandmother," 50 told XXL on the album's 10th anniversary in 2015. "I played my grandmother the (God Gave Me Style from The Massacre album) song. It was the first time I was able to play her a record without kind of cringing. My whole life, I had to be two people; I had to be 50 Cent outside, and then I had to be Curtis inside with my grandmother."
Since Interscope decided to push back the album's release date, 50 took it as a chance to market the album and create the buzz by himself by leaking its lead single, Disco Inferno, on Thanksgiving day.
Another great album released in 2005 was The Documentary by 50 Cent's own G-Unit soldier, The Game. Hate It or Love It and How We Do, the album's signature singles, were actually meant for 50's The Massacre, but he gave them away to Game.
50 Cent and Kanye West had one hell of a battle in 2007 when they, respectively, released Curtis and Graduation. Both albums scored record-breaking sales performances, but Kanye's Graduation came home with the winning belt.
The Massacre debuted and peaked atop the Billboard 200 chart with a whopping 1.15 million in five days, making him the second's hip-hop artist behind Eminem to score the highest first-week sales. As per 2015, the chart-topping Grammy-nominated album has sold over 9 million copies worldwide!
The release produced the #1 Billboard Hot 100 single "Candy Shop" (featuring Olivia)", "Disco Inferno", and "Just A Lil Bit", both of which hit #3. The album peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and garnered a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album. By 2020 the album was certified 6x Multi-Platinum for six million copies sold. See image above for the RIAA sales certifications of this album through the years*.