[5] Loveland, which had a significantly different tracklisting,[6] was to feature the original "Step in the Name of Love", his 2001 single "The World's Greatest", and various other songs, including a ten-minute opera remix of his 1996 hit I Believe I Can Fly.

Although first-run copies of Chocolate Factory included a bonus disc called Loveland, it is different than the bootleg as it is abridged and features mostly different, unleaked songs.

[8] Chocolate Factory comprises slow jams and upbeat club tracks, and many of its songs draw on classic soul music with call-and-response choruses and harmonies inspired by the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder.

Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times writes that he "pack[s] his verses full of words, then improvise[s] a tricky vocal line around a simple tune.

On "Forever", Kelly croons about an exaggerated fantasy of the married life, with "a picket fence, dog and a house / About 12 kids, you're cooking me breakfast in the morning, I'm taking the garbage out."

[21] Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis cited Chocolate Factory as "among the best work of his career" and went on to write "... as a singer, songwriter and producer, he's at the top of his game.

"[15] Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot viewed that "the subtext for this one makes it sound like musical spin control, a public-relations manifesto as much as an R&B album.

Music's felt that "Kelly’s hot-blooded horniness is an integral part of his persona; he can hardly back away from the risque R&B that’s made him what he is, despite the underage sex scandal that dogs him".

Channeling greats from Gaye to Wonder, his stripped-down bangers bang harder, his ballads have more gospel bluster, and he sings with the desperation of a loveman who knows the cops are waiting at his bedroom door.

For Christgau, Chocolate Factory had "bum-rushed the populace with woman-friendly rhetoric—pledges of devotion and other idealistic fancies, individualized sexual flattery, and an abject token in which Kelly not only ranks female 'backbone' above male 'bullshit' but allows as how said bullshit may be why women smoke cigarettes and snap off on their kids."

While finding the remix of "Step in the Name of Love" to be "hugely engaging", Christgau pointed out how "cavalier" or "stupid" it is for Kelly to declare himself "the pied piper of r&b" given the title's "pedophilic implications".

[4] After the release of Kelly's hit single, "Ignition (Remix)", which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, the album went on to sell over 2.72 million copies in the United States.

[citation needed] On May 19, 2003, the album was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments in excess of two million copies in the United States.