Single review: Brandy featuring Chris Brown - Put it down

"Put it down" is a generic piece of shit. Now, before the haters come out of the woodwork to call me everything derogatory under the sun, know this. Brandy is one of my favourite artists. I've stuck with this broad through the (few) hits and the consecutive flops. But I can't support this nonsense single of hers. This is not what I waited three and a half years for. I didn't need an amazing single from Brandy. I just needed a good song to instil something in me that Brandy is going to deliver an album I can cherish and play until my iPod claps out and Brandy realises she can't be leaving the house without a wig with bangs.

"Put it down" does not cut it. It doesn't even dent it.

Brandy's music in general has never come across as desperate. But this is what "Put it down" stinks of. Desperation. Working with Bangladesh because he's the go to guy for a club banger. Putting Chris Brown on a track because he's popular again and it'd get everybody talking. And singing a song about wanting dick. I would have taken her working with Max Martin and going Pop Rock over this contrived slobber. At least it would have been unexpected and different for Brandy. And you know Max would not have put a foot wrong with the production and the hook. Lawd knows Max Martin needs other broads other than Kelly Clarkson and P!nk to sing his songs and serve vocals.

I can't wait to see Brandy sell the rest of her soul for the music video and attempt to do sexy in a club with a dance routine. She tried to do choreographed sexy with "Afrodisiac" and we're not going to talk about that. I'd rather watch The Phantom menace.

Sean Garrett had claimed that the songs he'd cut with Brandy could not work with anybody but her. He's a f**king liar. Any broad in the game could sing this song. "Put it down" is in no way shape or form exclusive to Brandy. No other chick in the game could do "Who is she 2 U" how Brandy did that song. No other chick in the game could do "Angel in disguise" how Brandy did it. But slap the lyrics of "Put it down" on a sheet of A4 on front of somebody and stick a microphone in their face and they could sing this song and pull it off no worse or no better. The irony in what Sean Garrett says is that this song absolutely wreaks of him. I listen to this song and I can hear his voice singing it note for note, layer for layer. It's him down to the ground. And when Chris Brown starts singing you realise that he also could carry of this song as good, if not better than Brandy on his own. It'd certainly suit him more than it does her. Brandy doesn't matter on this song because it doesn't feel like it's hers. And if there's one thing about Brandy's music, it's that she's always owned every song to the point where you could not imagine anybody else on it but her. So as a fan, I feel disheartened that she went along with this shit and felt this is what she had to resort to.

Bangladesh's productions are sparse to say the least, but his beats always go hard. So why "Put it down" sounds like some unmixed demo with no kick and no punch is beyond me. I'd snap fingers to this in the club, but there's not a great deal to this song to get anymore out of me. For Brandy to go from classic club bangers like "I wanna be down", "Happy" and "Afrodisiac" to this atrocity...it kills a part of me. And it leaves me concerned that this new album of hers is going to sound outdated, drab and not up to par with what Brandy should be putting out; because Rico 'Turn the lights on and turn the music off' Love and Sean 'Hear a smash on the radio, bet yo' ass I didn't pen it' Garrett are giving her their regressive take on what they think is good music for Brandy and she seems happy to go along with it.

Bangladesh served up a shitty beat and Chris Brown brings nothing to the song what-so-ever. I find it difficult taking him seriously as any form of sex symbol when he sounds like a pre-pubescent scoundrel. And for Brandy to be singing a song to a woman beating teen about how she wants his penis is disturbing. Home girl has a child and is old enough to be Chris Brown's aunty. She needs to go have a talk with Jesus.

"Put it down" is a terrible song. It's worse coming from Brandy because she is so much better than this. But regardless of who would've gotten this song, it would have been a shitastic mess, because the song itself is just plain rubbish. I'm concerned that Brandy may be losing her musical touch, because many of the demos which had surfaced post Human recordings sounded lacklustre and sounded as though Brandy was channelling those involved with writing and producing the song instead than just doing her. Before it was Stargate and Ne-Yo. Now it's Sean Garrett and Rico Love. I feel as though Brandy is being suppressed and lacks so much confidence in going with her gut after her past two albums under performing, that she's just now become willing to let others steer the Brandy vessel, even if it's heading in the wrong direction.

RATING: 1 / 10