Pain Is Love is the third studio album by American rapper Ja Rule. Produced by Irv Gotti, it was released on October 2, 2001, by Murder Inc. Records, Def Jam Recordings. The album received a mixed reception from critics. Pain Is Love debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was supported by four singles: "Livin' It Up", "I'm Real ", "Always on Time" and "Down Ass Bitch". It was certified quadruple -platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 4,000,000 copies. Pain is Love received numerous awards and nominations including a nomination for Best Rap Album at the 44th Grammy Awards. The album's first two singles "Livin' It Up" featuring Case and "Always on Time" featuring Ashanti collected nominations for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2002 and 2003.
Critical reception
Pain is Love received generally mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 59, based on 10 reviews. AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier praised the album for fine-tuning the formula set by of having R&B crossover singles and hardcore rap tracks to balance out the whole record. An editor from HipHopDX said that hardcore tracks like "Dial M for Murder" and "Worldwide Gangsta" felt like forced attempts to bring back Ja's thug persona, but praised the album for having tracks that contain ear-grabbing lines and good beats, saying that "Pain Is Love is another positive establishment that will indeed create more popularity and more fan acknowledgement for Ja Rule." Steve 'Flash' Juon of RapReviews found Ja's singing voice on some tracks intolerable but gave the album credit for containing tracks that display Irv Gotti's producing talents and Ja's adequate lyricism, concluding that, "Ja Rule will live up to the latter half of his name and dominate the charts for the latter half of 2001 with an album that is undoubtedly his most solid release to date." Soren Baker of the Los Angeles Times gave credit to the singles "Livin' It Up" and "I'm Real" for being the album's strong points but criticized tracks like "The Inc" and "Worldwide Gangsta" for being bland and less effective, saying they "recycle hard-core themes without adding any clever phrasings or creative beat work to compensate for their ordinariness." Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club criticized the album for lacking substance to go with the catchy pop hooks and Ja for making what they perceive as failed attempts to copy 2Pac, specifically on the penultimate feature track "So Much Pain" concluding that "even at less than his best, 2Pac still conveys a sense of urgency and purpose that illustrates incontestably the huge chasm separating the real deal from a canny imitation."
Commercial performance
Pain is Love spawned two number one hit singles, debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart with sales of 361,000 copies in the first week and was certified multi-platinum in the United States. It also received a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album in 2002 but lost to OutKast's Stankonia.
Track listing
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. Co-producer Sample credits
"Dial M for Murder" contains interpolations of "Castle Walls", written by Dennis DeYoung and performed by Styx.
"Livin' It Up" contains excerpts from "Do I Do", written and performed by Stevie Wonder.
"I'm Real " contains an interpolation of "All Night Long" written by Rick James and performed by Mary Jane Girls.
