stelfox said:
glad everyone's liking the brandy album. i'd disagree about the earlier point about her being in any "semi-slump" pre hooking up w/ tim, though. full moon was a really solid album; a little overblown but, with tracks like "what about us" and "i thought", jerkins absolutely killed it (her cover of another day in paradise notwithstanding). however, i think it's a timely change of producer and it definitely works here. her voice has filled out a hell of a lot and she's doing a lot more of the throaty soul-belter stuff than previously, which is where i always thought she had most potential, anyway. btw just wanna say thanx 4 setting up these boards mark and matt - they're much needed and it's nice to be able to talk about music without fear of getting into a massive ruck with someone you don't even know!
what's up dave! not trying to start a massive ruck, but i gotta disagree about the brandy album. four or five tracks i liked pretty well -- you won't see me disparaging timbo's tricks -- but tim really isn't expanding his bag o' tricks all that much (and hasn't since he went bumpkin with bubba), and i have a hard time with brandy's voice. post-janet r&b has seen too much of the will-o'-wispy coo, and we've only got mariah (the greatest post-aretha r&b diva) and beyonce putting any meat on them lines. even mary j started in with the toni braxton coo.
the trouble i'm having with r&b these days is that there are no <i>women</i> anymore! it's all girls. pop used to be where the kids went to sing ditties and cheer our hearts, and r&b was where they went when they grew up, learned how to fuck and had some honest-to-god standards about the men they'd lie with. but these women don't hit the charts anymore, at least in the us. we want, apparently, lolitas who will lick lollipops seductively and promise not to talk back, not women with balls. gimme the latter please! in my mind, the story of r&b in the '00s is: whatever happened to the diva?
haha: having written all of that, i decided to play <i>aphrodisiac</i> for the first time in a few months, and i'm liking it loads more than i remembered. so let's temporarily reframe my post to be about r&b at large and not brandy in particular.