Three Ringz (Thr33 Ringz) [Expanded Edition]

This, in my opinion, was the beginning of the end for Pain. I liked this album 12-13 years ago when I was a pre-teen, but now as an adult I can see that this is nothing compared to his first two albums. The single Can't Believe it still holds up (other than Lil Wayne's part), I can remember being very excited for the album when it came out. But the rest of the album feels very thrown together, like last minute, I think he put this out under a lot of pressure and too soon after his last album. The features are what bring it down, it seems he went the easy road this time and had features on every song, his first two albums weren't like that. Most of the best songs are the ones without features, (ringleader Man, Keep Going, Welcome to Thr33 Ringz), and of course Karaoke was one of the best (Khaled overdid it a bit), but some of the other songs feel like leftovers, Can't Believe it was the only good single, Freeze was kind of average, and chopped and screwed is just lame. I feel like he was trying too hard with this album and he wanted the hip hop industry's (trash industry btw) approval, you can see this throughout his career that he struggles with this and he is conflicted between actually making the music he wants to make and true artistry and being accepteded by the trash hip hop community and being "hood" enough. Overall this album is still better than any of his albums since, but not on the same classic level as his first two. I'd give it a 6.5 to a 7 out of 10, of course that's just my opinion.