So Amazin'

Milian's previous release, ''It's About Time (2004), was her second studio album, but served as her debut in the US. The critical response to the album was mixed to generally negative. The club tracks, most notably lead single "Dip It Low", were praised; however, the ballads were said to be disappointing. The album only performed modestly commercially; it debuted and peaked at number 14 on the Billboard'' 200 album chart, selling a total of 382,000 copies, but managed to achieve Silver certification in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry. The album received a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Contemporary R&B Album" in 2005. Following the album's release, Milian was cast in a lead role in the horror film Pulse, starring alongside Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder. Milian traveled to Romania for filming, and later discovered that her then-boyfriend Nick Cannon had cheated on her while she was away. Milian said in an interview, "it was heartbreaking for me. I was a good girl, a really loyal girl – and I got beat real." Whereas Milian's previous albums had pop and R&B stylings, she was encouraged by Island Def Jam to target a new audience and release an urban record. Explaining the change, Milian said that one of her main problems was that previous releases would often find mainstream success, but would be relatively unsuccessful on urban radio. As an R&B artist, she wanted to build her core audience–a true fan base that would support her through time–to increase her career's longevity. The main purpose of her genre change was to go back to the streets and add to her core audience. ==Production==

To create a more urban record, Milian had a list of producers that she wanted to work with for So Amazin. She said that in most cases, even when she had R&B producers, most songs would end up being pop instead of R&B. Milian ended up working with Cool & Dre on the majority of the production of the album, Milian also wrote the track "Y'all Ain't Nothin'" with Ne-Yo, which was produced by The Heavyweights. Features on the album include Three 6 Mafia, Young Jeezy, and Dre of Cool & Dre. Milian did not try to write mainstream records for the radio; rather, she wrote about "everything, about your life and concentrate on you doing you." For previous albums, Milian wrote about things that had happened in the past, whereas for So Amazin, she focused on the present. She compared the writing process to writing a diary; whenever she would experience something that she thought would be important, she would write it down for future reference. Milian felt that by writing down true experiences, her songs were like "captured emotion". When writing songs, Milian said that the amount of time it took to write varied. It would depend on what she was writing about, what was going on in her life, and if it pertained to that exact moment. Sometimes the process was quick, but other times it could take several hours to write an entire song. Although Milian was a songwriter since her teenagers years, she only felt real growth during the production sessions when Dre told her, "there are no rules". Previously, Milian would write songs that followed rules, where she would have a hook, a verse, and another verse with similar sound and melody. For So Amazin, she wrote with a "no rules theory", which was her biggest obstacle while recording the album. She said, "It was just, you know what? I can change up the melody I can do different things. Sometimes I might get stuck but wait half an hour and it'll come to you and end up being hot. So that's probably my biggest obstacle, just stepping away from doing the usual that I know and stepping into something new. Once I got past all that, it was just easy. With flying colors, I started writing all the records." ==Composition==

Milian described So Amazin as a "consistent, very real and personal album". A problem Milian had with her previous album, ''It's About Time, was that it did not flow. The various pop and urban influences in that album confused the audience, and Milian wanted So Amazin'' to paint a picture; "you get led down the whole way, you kinda get to see my growth through one album". Milian wrote the hip-hop ballad "Gonna Tell Everybody" about "thinking that I had something good, what happens when it's over, and going forward with my life." The track was one of the final songs that Milian wrote about the break-up as it "helped me get it all out". While the record is about a break-up, it focuses more on closure and moving past it. Milian and Cool & Dre used the melody of the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony song "Tha Crossroads" and changed the lyrics "and I'm gonna miss everybody" to "and I'm gonna tell everybody". The other song, "Who's Gonna Ride", has a more street and gangster vibe, and contain more raw lyrics. Milian wrote the track with Dre, which she said helped because hip hop artists write about real things in their lives and are not afraid to say anything. While writing the track, Milian let her guard down and wrote what she was feeling and tried to be real. Lyrically, the song also deals with "the girls that come around and try to take your man. Or the groupie girls that are around, paying attention to the guys on TV that only hang out with them for those reasons." Milian also said "Who's Gonna Ride" was the hardest song to write because it was not safe, unlike previous songs she had written. The singer explained writing the lyrics was not hard, but the difficulty came from being real and actually writing about her true feelings. When writing the lyrics, Milian removed several lines that she thought were too harsh. ==Commercial performance==

So Amazin debuted and peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200, selling 54,000 copies in its first week and 163,000 copies in total. Internationally, the album peaked at number 55 on the Swiss Albums Chart, 67 on the UK Albums Chart, and 139 on the France Albums Chart. The album's lead single, "Say I", featured rapper Young Jeezy and had a music video, directed by Ray Kay. The single peaked at number four in the UK, and number 21 in the United States. Although she was dropped from the label, Milian continued to promote the album through live appearances, including performing on Power 106's Summer Splash. Milian revealed in an interview with Rap-Up that she was dropped two weeks after the release of her album. Milian stated that before the release of So Amazin, the label and L.A. Reid knew that the album would not have immediate large sales, since she was targeting a new urban audience, but promised to support her. However, after two weeks, L.A. Reid called to notify Milian that she had been dropped. The singer believed that it was a budget cut, and the label opted to spend money on Rihanna instead. Milian also dispelled rumors that she was originally offered Rihanna's song "SOS". ==Critical reception==

So Amazin' received mixed reviews from music critics. Metacritic gave the album a Metascore—a weighted average based on the impressions of a select 12 critical reviews—of 59, signifying mixed or average reviews. David Peisner of Maxim gave the album three out of five stars and said that Milian's "talent is real", and commended her "silky and sassy" voice. He praised Cool & Dre's "badass" production, as well as "intoxicating" lead single "Say I". Clover Hope of Billboard wrote that Milian tried to transform from "peppy pop sweetheart" to "sweet urban soulstress", but the album could not "pinpoint her true identity" and could "only [scratch] the surface of who she really is." Hope praised lead single, "Say I", describing it as "instantly rousing". Dan Gennoe of Yahoo! Music UK said that the production by Cool & Dre ensured for "a cohesive whole, with a clear, unmistakable identity". He praised single "Say I", saying it "shimmies to a feisty ghetto strut and Shaft-sized orchestrals", as well as "Twisted", "Hot Boy" and "Just A Little Bit". He described So Amazin as "almost the perfect R&B album", only missing "a couple of killer singles". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine wrote that while Milian claimed that she was "proudly displaying the various sides of her multifaceted personality", he felt that "only personality displayed on So Amazin is that of her contemporaries and predecessors". He felt that contrary to the album's title, "So Amazin proves to be anything but". Andy Kellman, of music database AllMusic, felt that So Amazin was "Milian's strongest album yet, if only by a narrow margin". He said that the album was short on ideas, with Cool & Dre using beats from some of their recent hits. He felt that Milian's weakness was ballads, which were "more like placeholders that merely apply some forced variety to the album"; but described the club tracks as "perfectly functional and appealing". Quentin B. Huff of PopMatters praised the album, "despite a few lyrical hiccups, a couple of lackluster hooks, and some obvious influences." ==Track listing==

• John D.S. Adams – engineer • Mathu Anderson – make-up • Carol Corless – package coordinator • April DeVona – assistant engineer • Tony Duran – photography • Thomas "T" Hatcher – bass • Jean-Marie Horvat – mixing • Patrick Magee – assistant engineer • Alan Mason – assistant engineer • Renson Mateo – engineer • Kevin Mayer – mixing assistant • Carmen Milian – management • Christina Milian – executive producer • Eddie Montilla – bass, keyboards • Adrienne Muhammad – A&R • Gary Noble – engineer • Herb Powers – mastering • Derrick "Swol" Ray – bass • Eric Rennaker – assistant engineer • Nico Solis – engineer • Shakir Stewart – A&R • Randy Stodghill – hair stylist • Alli Truch – creative director • Eric Weissman – sample clearance • Andy West – art direction, design • James M. Wisner – mixing assistant • Eric Wong – marketing ==Charts==