Album review: Brandy - Full Moon

Brandy’s Full Moon had a lot to live up to and follow up. Never Say Never was a critical and commercial success which catapulted Brandy to insane levels of stardom in the 90s, and is the album responsible for Brandy’s only Grammy to date.

Never Say Never was also the start of a union between Brandy, Rodney Jerkins and his Darkchild posse, which included his brother Fred Jerkins III, and co-writer and vocal arranged and producer LaShawn Daniels, along with honorary Darkchild member, songwriter Kenisha Prett. There was a clear chemistry between Brandy and Darkchild on Never Say Never, so it made sense for Brandy to work with them again for ITS follow-up. But smartly, nobody set out to do what they did before. So Full Moon is by no means a Never Say Never Part 2. Even some may wish that it were.

Full Moon was an album of transition. All who were involved were tasked with creating music which would reflect Brandy becoming a woman. But it also had to contend with a lot of other shit that an artist has to deal with when they’ve been away from music for an extended period of time. 4 years to be exact. And a hell of a lot had changed in those 4 years between Never Say Never and Full Moon.

In that time, Darkchild had become a well known name in both pop and R&B, in part because of the huge success of “The Boy Is Mine”. So, Rodney Jerkins ended up producing for Destiny’s Child, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Toni Braxton, Spice Girls, Michael Jackson and every new Black girl that labels had signed. Everything Darkchild was coming up gold in the beginning. But over time Rodney Jerkins began to lose his Midas touch, as the soundscape of pop leaning R&B began to change. There was a shift from sounds which incorporated real instruments and session players, into something far more synth driven, which sounded like they were composed on an R2-D2 unit and a malfunctioning Game Boy - something I can only describe as ‘The Millennium sound’. Alongside this was the explosion of 2-step, brought on in part because of the breakout success of Craig David, who had popularised the sound with Artful Dodger and his hits “Rewind” and “Fill Me In”, both of which found audiences in the US. All of these things factored into how Full Moon would be approached. Rodney Jerkins had to try to embrace the sounds that charts were responding to over his well established signature sound, whilst figuring out where Brandy sits within it all. And then everybody had to come together to create songs which conveyed that Brandy was no longer a young girl and that she was not Moesha.

Full Moon managed to strike a good balance between sounding of the time without sounding TOO of the time to the point that it dates the album as a whole; all the while managing to put a grown-ass Brandy front and centre without it ever feeling over done. Not the hardest thing in the world to do given how Brandy’s music often felt grown even as a teen; a common thread amongst her peers Monica and Aaliyah. But this doesn't mean the execution is always perfect, particularly in regards to the sound.

Full Moon opens up with a Rodney Jerkins produced intro featuring somebody logging into a computer which has a talking A.I with a digitised voice. We then get a short re-worked version of “What About Us?” with its off-kilter with digital blips, whizzes and what-not. The Millennium Sound is thrown at you immediately. But then the next and first full length song is a smooth R&B cut which has zero regard for what is burning up the pop charts or even the R&B charts for that matter. “Full Moon” is a widely considered fave from the album and it’s understandable as to why. Its groove is infectious. Brandy’s vocals glide over the music. It’s smooth. “Full Moon” sounds unlike anything Brandy has ever done before, but it feels so right. And the tempo is in that sweet spot where you can pull a whole set of shapes, do a two-step, pop a whine, or just buss it open on the floor. It’s not what you expect the album to open with, especially after the intro and the single “What About Us?”. But it was a smart choice, which provides relief for those who were perhaps expecting this whole album to be Brandy singing over a Star Wars droid. But there are most certainly moments where The Millennium Sound creeps into the album, and they’re usually at odds with everything else.

“Can We” is basically just The Millennium Sound. Not a little bit. Not a hint of. It’s just straight up blips, bloops and dial-up modems. “Can We” is not a bad song. In fact it’s not miles off from Never Say Never’s “U Don't Know Me (Like U Used To)”, which manages to sound more timeless and effortless in its pursuit of this type of sound before it was even a sound. And coincidentally, “Can We” transitions straight into “What About Us?”. A song which hasn’t aged as badly as I thought it would, and was the original Darkchild foray into The Millennium Sound before Rodney Jerkins started giving it to everybody.

“All In Me” is a stand out on the album because it’s the closet to pop I think Brandy has ever gone. It sounds like Rodney Jerkins’ take on a Jam & Lewis cut for Janet Jackson. It’s also the one song where Rodney Jerkins tries his hand at 2-step for a breakdown which comes in before the Middle-8. It’s a cool inclusion that will get your shoulders bouncing, but it doesn't make the song better. Cut it out and the song would not be worse off. It’s just kinda...there. “All In Me” would have made a great single. It would have split Brandy’s fanbase down the middle. But it would have had pop radio playing Brandy in a way it probabaly hadn’t done since “The Boy Is Mine”.

Whilst Rodney Jerkins’ takes on trying to remain hip and current are far from failures, they feel like instances of him trying to prove to himself that he can do what the top 10 chart runners do, and less about Brandy. Full Moon shines brightest when it isn’t trying to be anything in particular, and the focus is on how best to serve Brandy. And thankfully, this is the bulk of the album as opposed to the exception. But the former is a sticking point for sure, and one of the reasons why Full Moon may fall short for some, and chart beneath Never Say Never and Afrodisiac on their Brandy album rankings.

“When You Touch Me” follows through on the theme laid out in the album title track, but slows the BPM right the way down and gets more sensual, marking this as Brandy’s first true grown ass woman slow jam. “When You Touch Me” is perfection, and it feels like a love letter to R&B just as much as it does to Brandy’s lover. A nice melody, a bassline that knocks and even a talkbox vocal from Teddy Riley. This vibe is revisited later on in the album with “It's Not Worth It” which is pretty much a part 2 to Never Say Never’s “Angel In Disguise”, which it also samples. It’s a gorgeously produced song with orchestral swells and sweeps that make it sound like it should belong in a Disney movie. And the croon that you hear in the intro and throughout the song are indeed Michael Jackson’s; a reciprocation for Brandy providing background vocals on his Invincible album opener “Unbreakable”.

Whilst Never Say Never was your average run of song topics for a girl in her late teens, Full Moon delves a little deeper. Sure, there are a couple of ‘That n***a ain’t shit songs’ such as “I Thought”, “Apart” and “What About Us?”. But then there is also a zinger like “Anybody”, which feels like one of the most deeply personal songs on the album, and also the heaviest; staying in an abusive relationship, doing the most to keep it a secret, and blaming yourself for not keeping up appearances that everything is fine. It’s a standout song on the album which marks new territory for both Brandy and Rodney Jerkins. Brandy digs into a subject matter which was clearly on her spirit, but vocally also taps into the lowest registers of her voice, going the lowest I think I’ve heard her go. Rodney Jerkins also takes the opportunity to switch up his production in response to his old sound no longer bagging hits, and the steady chart ascent of Timbaland. Whilst other songs on the album are different takes on the Darkchild sound, they still have traits which make them unmistakably Darkchild. “Anybody” on the other hand sounds like a straight up copy of Timbaland’s sound. It sounds great. But it doesn’t sound a damn thing like Darkchild. Then there is the ‘is it or isn’t it a song about Jesus’ song "He Is", another album favourite where soul and R&B is at its core, and Brandy’s vocals are at the forefront. This is the closest to gospel that Brandy had gotten on record at this point, and is another example of her being put into this new space which showed her exponential growth as an artist and a vocalist. Brandy never could have done this song on her debut album or Never Say Never.

For all of the amazing music production on Full Moon and the many tricks that Rodney Jerkins pulls out, Brandy's vocals remain the focus and what truly anchors the album. Never Say Never saw Brandy play around with vocal arrangements and give us crazy intricacies which weren’t common in any genre of music. Brandy also had a unique and beautiful tone, but she stayed within a set range and rarely came out of it. When Whitney asked a bitch ‘Why are you down there!?’ during the production rehearsal of Cinderella, she took it to heart. Listening to Brandy on Full Moon is like listening to a whole different Brandy. And what makes it even more of a surprise is that this doesn’t hit you until the third track of the album. “Full Moon” is smooth, mellow and doesn’t have Brandy given anything we hadn’t heard from her before. But the next song “I Thought” has Brandy going for notes, giving you range, singing the entire song down and channelling her inner Whitney. Even now I listen to this song, I am in awe, because everything Brandy gives vocally on this track is so far and beyond what she gave on Never Say Never, and WAY beyond what I thought Brandy was even capable of giving.

Then there are the vocal arrangements. Never had I heard vocals arranged with such intricacy and with so many layers until I heard this album. Verses sound like two or three Brandy’s volleying lines back and forth. The chorus’ sound like they’re being sung by a group of Brandy’s. It's insane. The ear Brandy possesses to be able to conceive some of these vocal arrangements really is something. It truly does amaze me. What Brandy does is nothing short of skillful.

Full Moon isn’t an album that many fans seem to hang on too much. Retrospectively it sits in an awkward place in Brandy’s discography, between Brandy’s biggest album and one which became a bit of a cult classic. But Full Moon is a great album. The tracklist could have done with knocking a song off or two. But even when I think about which songs could have been dropped, I can’t easily pick which ones, because the are no bad songs on this album. But if I absolutely HAD to cut songs, I’d probably pick “Can We” and “Apart” as they do drag the middle of the album. And I would probably chop “Love Just Wouldn't Count Me Out” or “Come A Little Bit Closer”, even though I adore both of these songs. None of these are on the block for being bad. It’s purely because they affect the pacing of the album, as Full Moon hits a lull at its mid point and then really drags at the very end, and the aforementioned songs play a significant part in that.

Full Moon was a great successor to Never Say Never, which showed far more bravery and a great example of a musical transition from teen star into womanhood than I think Brandy was given credit for at the time. It’s just a shame certain date-stamped production choices on songs place this album in somewhat of a time capsule. But Full Moon is a great display of Brandy’s artistry and growth, and a reaffirmation of a sound and style that is uniquely hers.

👍🏾 Brandy’s vocals
👎🏾 The album does drag on a bit

VERDICT: MUST BE A FULL MOON...

Highlights:
■ Full Moon 🔥
■ I Thought 🔥
■ When You Touch Me 🏆
■ Like This
■ All In Me
■ Can We
■ Anybody 🔥
■ It's Not Worth It 🔥
■ He Is
■ Wow 🔥