The Massacre

The Massacre is the second studio album by rapper 50 Cent, released on March 3 2005 — five days ahead of the original release date due to Internet leakage. The album reached number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart that year.

Background
The Massacre has a music video for every track.

The Massacre was re-released on September 6 2005 with a remix of "Outta Control" featuring Mobb Deep. The re-release included a bonus DVD (with music videos for all of the songs, and the trailer for the movie Get Rich or Die Tryin') and excluded the G-Unit remix of "Hate It or Love It", clearly due to the ongoing feud between 50 Cent and The Game. The re-release helped it re-climb to number two in the United States.

The Massacre was also released in a "censored" version that censors out most profanity, violence, and all drug content. "Gunz Come Out" has inconsistency in the editing, and contains some profanity. This album wasn't as heavily censored as Get Rich or Die Tryin', but it is still a very highly censored album ranking in severity with albums such as Tony Yayo's Thoughts of a Predicate Felon and Nas' Stillmatic.

Sales
The album sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days of release, making it the sixth fastest-selling album since SoundScan began tracking sales data in 1991. It is the second best opening week for any rap album in history, behind Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, and finished as the second-best selling album of 2005 with 4.85 million copies sold, behind Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi. It has been certified 6x platinum with over 6 million copies sold in the U.S. and 11 million worldwide.

Reception
The album received generally favorable reviews, however most music critics agreed that it did not live up to his debut. It has less direct Shady/Aftermath production than Get Rich or Die Tryin', as in-house G-Unit producers, Scott Storch (a former keyboardist with The Roots who had collaborated with Dr. Dre on his comeback album 2001 and other production), and various outside producers handle most of the beats.

The Massacre was nominated at the 2006 Grammy Awards for Best Rap Album, but lost to Kanye West's Late Registration. It was ranked the tenth best album of the year by Rolling Stone.

Track listing
Information taken from The Massacre's liner notes.

Special edition
The DVD includes the video for every song, the "50 Cent: Bulletproof" Video Game trailer and the "Get Rich or Die Tryin" Movie trailer.