Discography Deep Dive #3: BRANDY
In preparation for her upcoming The Boy Is Mine Tour with Monica, here's how I would rank each of the seven studio albums from "The Vocal Bible."
Brandy is someone whose music I was never exposed to very much growing up, and I was too young to have seen any of her films at the time of their release. My first encounter with her music arrived when I was a teenager developing an intense interest in 90s/2000s R&B, but even that experience only provided me a surface-level awareness of her greatest hits. As my music taste expanded and matured, I began to comb through her discography and discover what made her so beloved among fans of R&B. I started to hear her influence in the music of one of my personal favorite artists, Ariana Grande, and noticed the throughline between the two artists that stemmed from Mariah Carey in the early 90s- all three of them incorporating rich and layered harmonies into their music. With only seven albums under her belt since her debut in 1994, Brandy’s discography is somewhat compact, but what it lacks in quantity it certainly makes up for in quality. Whether you’re a Brandy superfan or someone interested in listening to her music and looking for a place to start, I hope you enjoy reading where each of her albums rank in my third Discography Deep Dive!
7. Human (2008)
A lot had changed for Brandy in between the release of Afrodisiac in 2004 and its follow-up, Human, in 2008. Most notably, the singer was involved in a fatal car accident in 2006 that resulted in the death of one of the drivers involved. This significant personal trauma, along with the period of grief and disruption that followed, left Brandy’s fifth album in limbo, as directionless as the singer herself was feeling at the time. Plans to work with a laundry list of new producers and collaborators failed to materialize or were scrapped altogether, and the project ultimately fell into the hands of one Rodney Jerkins (AKA “Darkchild”). The pair hadn’t collaborated since 2002, and their interpersonal relationship had all but deteriorated since, but they found themselves reunited, rekindled, and ready to work on Brandy’s fifth studio album, Human. All the necessary pieces that make up Brandy’s best projects were present- lyrical fodder, Darkchild’s production input, and Brandy’s stellar vocal ability- but, they just don’t quite come together on Human. The album begins with a strong run of tracks that highlight the increasingly raspy tone of Brandy’s voice that emerged as she matured. Lead single, “Right Here (Departed)” is one of a few great upbeat tracks on the record, showcasing Darkchild’s maximalist and technology-driven beats that lend a pop feel in contrast to the strictly R&B leanings of her previous album. Later in the track list comes “Shattered Heart,” another densely layered track that features a Middle Eastern inspired groove and an unexpected tempo change in its final leg. “A Cappella (Something’s Missing)” is potentially the ultimate Brandy track in her entire discography. If I were looking to demonstrate Brandy’s influence on the way musicians stack and layer vocals, this is the track I would pull out. Built entirely out of vocal stacks and a single electric guitar, “A Cappella” is a masterclass in vocal production unlike anything else Brandy had ever done before. Between these highlights, the record is padded with an excess of generic, syrupy ballads that do very little to highlight either Brandy or Darkchild’s unique talents. The lull of these tracks makes it impossible for the record to ever truly get off the ground, which is a shame considering the strength of its more upbeat tracks. Until recently, Brandy would frequently express her disdain for this album and would go on to accuse Darkchild of phoning it in on the production front, and it’s hard to disagree with her when you consider the material. The frenetic energy of their previous collaborations is replaced by an indiscriminate sound that doesn’t give Brandy any room to flex her vocal chops. Despite all of the trials and tribulations that inspired Human, the resulting record is one that plays it safe much more than it makes any attempts at innovation.
Fav Tracks: Warm It Up (With Love), Right Here (Departed), Shattered Heart, A Cappella (Something’s Missing), 1st & Love
Least Fav Tracks: Camouflage, Torn Down, Human, True
6. b7 (2020)
If there were glimmers of the return of “The Vocal Bible” on Two Eleven, she was officially back, in full effect, on b7. On her first album in a whopping seven years, Brandy went through a period of soul-searching and dug deep within herself to come up with the material for b7, her aptly-titled seventh studio album. b7 is as close to “classic Brandy” as the artist had come since her heyday in the early aughts, before a period of commercial lows and creative missteps led to some unfortunate setbacks in her career. Now in her forties, Brandy’s voice had matured beyond her teenage abilities into a velvety smooth rasp that she pushed to the limit across this record’s run of tracks. Despite the positive result of her decision to include an array of producers on Two Eleven, Brandy returned to her traditional creative formula for b7, composing nearly all of the album’s material with Darhyl Camper, Jr. and LaShawn Daniels, known for their work with artists like Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, and Tamar Braxton. The resulting album is a conceptual, classic R&B record featuring aqueous, dreamlike production complete with Brandy’s signature harmonies and vocal stacks. Several of the album’s tracks feature references to mental illness and Brandy’s experience overcoming the effects of her own struggles with depression. Aside from this theme, very little else ties the album directly to Brandy. Most of the tracks lack the kind of lyrical specificity that could be found on Afrodisiac, Never Say Never, or even Human. Seven years of experience led to the creation of b7, but the wide span of time also created a sense of detachment between the artist and her lyrics- at times it feels as if she’s singing about the very distant past, something that no longer effects her and only remains as a vague memory. Camper and Daniels’s beats across the album are steady and classic, mainly functioning as a way for Brandy to riff over them and employ her ear for unique melodies and harmonies. Several moments are generic and inoffensive, flowing like water but passing by with very little impact on the listener. There is a section of the album dedicated to a few upbeat, quasi-rap songs that stick out like a sore thumb among the record’s consistently smooth track list. Not only do they break the album’s flow, which is one of its most prominent features, but they add nothing in the realm of deepening the other established ideas. When Brandy is at her best, like on the stunning closer, “Bye Bipolar,” she soars over the sparse rhythms and fills the empty space with layers and layers of harmonies, but these highs are not common enough to justify some of the more obvious lows. b7 features a strong start and finish, but is often misguided, bland, and withdrawn. It is surely not Brandy reaching a new creative peak, but what it lacks in standout moments it makes up for in concept, consistency, and sophistication.
Fav Tracks: Saving All My Love, Unconditional Oceans, Lucid Dreams, No Tomorrow, Bye Bipolar
Least Fav Tracks: I Am More, High Heels (with Sy’Rai), Baby Mama (feat. Chance the Rapper
5. Brandy (1994)
Before she was known as “The Vocal Bible,” she was Moesha, the titular character from the beloved sitcom that had an impressive 6-season run. She also played Cinderella in the 1997 remake of the animated Disney classic, and Karla Wilson in the 1998 cult horror sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. But before all of that, she was just Brandy Norwood, the 15-year-old girl from Mississippi with a voice like silk and the ambition to share it with the world. Brandy’s self-titled debut album arrived in 1994, marking the teen R&B star’s musical introduction, and taking the industry by storm almost immediately. Despite her young age, Brandy does not sound like what you might expect from a teenager- then again, neither did Brandy. Never are any of the album’s tracks hindered by the vocal immaturity present among most teen stars; from the very start, Brandy’s instrument was in a league of it’s own. The record eschews most of the hallmarks of the teen pop subgenre, opting instead for sophisticated hip-hip and R&B suited to Brandy’s velvety smooth tone. At times the record’s consciously grown-up sonic pallet can clash with the youthful sentiments depicted in its lyrics, rather than leaning on Brandy’s childlike innocence for a more emotionally-driven sound. On standout track and single, “Best Friend,” Brandy skates over a beat reminiscent to something Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis would have made for Janet Jackson at the time, demonstrating a keen ear for the earworm hooks that would become her signature as time went on. She wears her inspirations on her sleeve, literally shouting some of them out by name on “I Dedicate, Pt. 1,” which can occasionally come off a bit too on the nose. Brandy’s delivery on “Brokenhearted” imitates that of her idol, Whitney Houston, and “Give Me You” is an example of the undeniable mark Aretha Franklin made on the singer during her artistic development. Brandy’s signature vocal stacks, which would later earn her the honorific “Vocal Bible” title, are present throughout, though still clearly in their infancy. Like a lot of R&B from the 90s, some of the tracks are overlong, featuring extended outros where its clear that Brandy hadn’t quite perfected the ad libbing that she would also come to pioneer. Although not the work of someone accessing their full musical potential, Brandy is an impressive debut from a young star-to-be that doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel, but instead settles on being a very fine reproduction.
Fav Tracks: Movin’ On, Baby, Best Friend, I Wanna Be Down, Brokenhearted, Give Me You
Least Fav Tracks: I’m Yours, Always On My Mind
4. Two Eleven (2012)
After the critical and commercial failure of Human in 2008, Brandy went back to the drawing board. She ditched her original plans to reunite with Darkchild and Timbaland, instead calling upon an all-star roster of contemporary hitmakers to craft the songs that would become her follow-up, Two Eleven. The title of the album references February 11th, the date of Brandy’s birth and the passing of her idol, Whitney Houston, in 2012. The result of Brandy’s decision to branch out and feature multiple producers and songwriters on the same album, something she had yet to do up until this point, is an album that is varied in its lyrical content while still managing to have a mostly unified sonic pallet. Two Eleven features the most hip-hop flair of any of her albums since 2004’s Afrodisiac, culminating in a crisp, clean, and syncopated sound across the record’s more up-tempo numbers. Unlike its ballad-heavy predecessor, Two Eleven is equal parts up and mid-tempo R&B, sequenced in a way that situates the album’s vulnerable moments neatly between its instances of swaggering confidence. Many critics feel that Brandy struggled with incorporating sexuality into her music as she matured, but that unease is not apparent to me on this record. Perhaps this perception is due to the association of Brandy with her teenage film roles, but I am unable to find the same issue with tracks like “Paint This House,” that many others have expressed. The mid-tempo moments on Two Eleven differ from those on Human in that they feature more bass-heavy, R&B grooves, as opposed to the pop sensibilities that Darkchild crafted for the latter. This doesn’t stop them from blending together at times, and a consequence of the album’s more concise sound is that it tends to retread familiar territory once it reaches the halfway point. Despite their occasional tediousness, the ballads on Two Eleven still feature more interest and detail than almost any of those that can be found across Human- and there are a lot to compare. The opening trio of tracks, “Wildest Dreams,” “So Sick,” and “Slower,” are evidence of what’s to come for the rest of the album. Each one represents one of the major sonic themes found across the record- the mid-tempo R&B ballad, bass driven banger, and thumping hip-hop number. “So Sick” is the best track from frequent contributor Mr. Bangladesh, whose other cuts are all jarring hip-hop club numbers that contrast with the record’s smooth feel. In a lot of ways, Brandy remains on the cutting edge of the genre- like on the futuristic, “Slower”- while at other points throughout the album, she makes it a point to call back to her R&B roots. Consistent with her desire to take the genre into the future, Brandy called upon the then up-and-coming songwriter, Frank Ocean, to pen one of the album’s standout tracks, “Scared of Beautiful.” Although I’m deeply sad that we’ll never hear this song as a duet between the two artists, it still makes for an interesting connection between generations of R&B superstardom. In a lot of ways, Two Eleven was a return to form for Brandy and, while it is an undeniable improvement from its predecessor, it lacks the diversity to sit amongst her other truly excellent works.
Fav Tracks: Wildest Dreams, So Sick, Slower, No Such Thing As Too Late, Without You, Scared of Beautiful, Wish Your Love Away
Least Fav Tracks: Let Me Go, Put It Down (feat. Chris Brown), What You Need
3. Never Say Never (1998)
Brandy’s creative partnership with Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins would go on to become one of the most fruitful artistic relationships in R&B history, and it began on Never Say Never. Concerned with expanding her appeal into more mainstream adult markets, Brandy consulted with Darkchild for the majority of the record, resulting in some of her best and most commercially successful music to date. Known best for his propulsive, mechanical beats, Darkchild joined forces with Brandy to pioneer a new approach that helped carry R&B into the new millennium. The hip-hop sensibilities of her debut are largely eschewed in favor of a combination of contemporary R&B and pop, with balladry more heavily incorporated to appeal to more mature listeners. If maturity was the goal, it comes across instantly, both sonically and lyrically. Less focused on young love, Brandy is free to explore more complex territory on Never Say Never, taking her first serious turn at songwriting on six of the album’s tracks. Equally as diverse are the record’s beats, ranging from slick midtempo R&B to traditional adult contemporary. Brandy’s developing relationship with music saw her start to play with rhythm in a way similar to artists like Mariah Carey or Aaliyah. Unlike others at the time, they pioneered a unique approach among musicians by reshaping the relationship between the singer and the track itself. Rather than it simply being a means to showcase Brandy’s incomparable vocal talent, she treats the beat like its own instrument, creating an interplay between herself and the rhythm that would develop even further as her relationship with Darkchild deepened. Though some would misinterpret Darkchild’s slick beats as lacking in soul, the warmth brought on by Brandy’s vocal layers in combination with his skittering tracks was undeniable magic. While Never Say Never featured guest vocals from Monica and Ma$e, it could be said that all of Brandy and Darkchild’s tracks were their own unique kind of duet. The album’s first half is rife with examples of this technique put to use that are sequenced in a way that knows when to come up for air so as never to let the album overstay its welcome or feel overloaded. My only critique lies with the fact that the record fizzles out a bit in its final leg, especially in comparison with the absolute fireworks of its first few tracks. Though it does drag at times, the ballad-driven final third is still an excellent showcase for Brandy’s voice and demonstrates the complexity of her range as a musician and vocalist- just as easily as she could weave her voice into an R&B groove could she belt atop a David Foster track. Not only was Never Say Never the sound of an artist coming into their own as a musician, it was the sound of what was to come for R&B as a genre.
Fav Tracks: Angel in Disguise, The Boy Is Mine (with Monica), Almost Doesn’t Count, Top of the World (feat. Ma$e), Have You Ever, Put That on Everything
Least Fav Tracks: One Voice
2. Afrodisiac (2004)
After spending the several years in the stratosphere during the development and release of Full Moon, it was time for Brandy to come back down to Earth. Following the birth of her daughter and the dissolution of her relationship with her daughter’s father, Brandy went out in search of a new start, both personally and professionally. The tumult in her personal life made it inevitable that Brandy would have to alter her creative team, since Robert Smith, a major player among Darkchild’s associates, was the man whom she had just recently had a child with and subsequently separated from. This fact, combined with Brandy and Darkchild’s rocky personal relationship, led Brandy to Timbaland- who needs no introduction- and the two joined forces to create her fourth album, Afrodisiac. Pressing play on the album’s first track immediately reveals two things- firstly, Timbaland’s fingerprints are all over this album, but Afrodisiac is no Aaliyah copycat, even considering Brandy’s shared admiration for the recently deceased singer. Second, from a lyrical standpoint, this may be the first of her albums that is specific to Brandy, the person. While her previous work cultivated a signature sound, Afrodisiac was the first time that Brandy bared her soul in such an honest way, beginning with the very first track, “Who I Am.” Afrodisiac is Brandy’s most mature-sounding record, thanks in part to its intensely personal lyricism and sparse, rhythmically-focused sound. Timbaland’s funky, percussive beats compliment Brandy’s maturing rasp just as well Darkchild’s denser productions from her previous two records. Timbaland’s input led the album in a more grounded, contemporary R&B direction, incorporating “old-school” sounds through his innovative use of samples, but never delving into the throwback territory previously explored on her debut. The inclusion of multiple samples- ranging from Coldplay tracks to movie soundtracks- was something new for Brandy, whose previous work always took a future forward approach, but they are incorporated so expertly on Afrodisiac that they never drag the record into familiar territory. Sequencing is an issue that plagued Brandy’s earlier releases, but, on Afrodisiac, she finally got it right. The album manages its highs and lows- aided by the fact that it features nothing that I would call a “traditional” ballad- expertly, balancing the anxiety of her recent failed romance with the passion of a developing one. Fourth albums are often a pivotal point in a musician’s career, defining the direction they plan to take now that they’ve established themselves enough to explore their sound. If Afrodisiac is any indication, Brandy knew exactly where she was headed.
Fav Tracks: Who I Am, Afrodisiac, Who Is She 2 U, Talk About Our Love (feat. Kanye West), I Tried, Focus, Turn It Up, necessary, Come As You Are, How I Feel, Should I Go
Least Fav Tracks: N/A
1. Full Moon (2002)
R&B can be divided into the periods B.F.M. and A.F.M. (Before and After Full Moon); to say something shifted with its release in 2002 would be putting it lightly. Fresh off the conclusion of her highly successful sitcom and now a full-fledged adult, Brandy was ready to take the reigns of her music career. Not content to stick to the formula that worked so well on Never Say Never, Brandy went out in search of new producers and songwriters, ensuring that her fingerprints were on every piece involved with the creation of her third album. The results are nothing short of astonishing. Full Moon follows a loose concept that follows a couple as they meet, experience the trials and tribulations of a relationship, and eventually realize they’re meant to be together. While this concept may be somewhat shaky and not exactly obvious on the surface, the sound of Full Moon is so unified in its approach that it formed its own conceptual throughline. Each track flows into the next in a gorgeous blend of sound that adds an otherworldliness to the listening experience, taken even further by the album’s Afrofuturistic imagery. It was on Full Moon that Brandy expanded upon what made Never Say Never so interesting- namely her vocal stacks- and claimed her rightful title as “The Vocal Bible.” Her approach to stacking vocals and harmonies inspired generations of musicians, including the likes of pop superstar Ariana Grande. Darkchild reaches greater heights here than ever before, providing the album with its signature skittering rhythms, blips and bloops, and crunched drums. Many of these rhythms were akin to that of fellow Y2K powerhouse producer Timbaland and his work with Aaliyah, another teen star whose career shared many similarities with Brandy’s. The Timbaland/Aaliyah inspiration was no secret, as both Darkchild and Brandy applauded their work and credited them with inspiring several tracks on the album, most notably, “Anybody.” What set Brandy apart from her contemporaries was her voice, and Full Moon saw Brandy using it in a host of new ways. Taking their work on Never Say Never even further, Brandy and Darkchild often built entire tracks around Brandy’s voice, with the line between vocals and production becoming even more blurred. One could no longer exist without the other. Full Moon also marked Brandy’s first record where she did her own vocal production on every track, another example of the brilliant results of her increased participation in the album’s creation. Full Moon is a rare kind of record, one that marks a line of demarcation for Brandy as an artist, but also for the way producers and singers alike would approach making music forever.
Fav Tracks: Full Moon, I Thought, When You Touch Me, Apart, Can We, What About Us?, Nothing, It’s Not Worth It, Come a Little Closer
Least Fav Tracks: N/A