Brandy teases a New Moon, a project in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Full Moon

March 5th 2022 marked the 20th anniversary of Brandy’s third studio album Full Moon. An album which had a lukewarm reception upon its release back in 2002, and one which was then overshadowed by Brandy’s surprise pregnancy - halting all of the promotion the album would have otherwise had. Atlantic Records didn’t seem to know to promote the album through Brandy’s pregnancy, which was weird given that part of the premise of Full Moon was to present Brandy as a grown ass woman. But it seemed Atlantic Records maybe wanted to still ride the ambiguity train and keep Brandy in that teen  space a little longer, and weren’t ready for that full shift.

There have long been rumours and talk of Brandy re-releasing Full Moon in some capacity, and now it’s fully a reality which has come from the woman herself; via a teaser trailer with what sounds like newly recorded vocals for the album title track.

I was always super sceptical of a Full Moon re-release with newly recorded vocals, because Full Moon is such a great album, and one which doesn’t need to be touched or reworked in any way shape or form.

Brandy | The Year Of Full Moon 20

But I do like the idea of Full Moon getting the rollout and widespread attention it never got the first time around. We still don’t full know what this New Moon will consist of. But I don’t think it’s going to just be a re-release of the album with all new vocals and re-arrangements of every song. Firstly, it’s unnecessary. Especially given that Full Moon isn’t locked into a situation as per JoJo’s first 2 albums and a bunch of Taylor Swift’s - which prompted them to re-record albums. Then again, Brandy is independent now. So maybe she wants to siphon some of Full Moon’s streams into something she owns versus letting Warner Music take it all.

Also, Brandy’s songs aren’t straightforward arrangement wise. The amount of effort it would take to re-record 16 songs on an album which features the sheer amount of vocal tracks that a Brandy song generally does is just crazy to me. Sure. Namie Amuro re-recorded 38 songs for a greatest hits album. But even she skimped on background vocals on a bunch of those songs and only on a handful of them did she managed to match the energy of the original recordings. And one Brandy song has more vocal tracks than the whole of Finally. The energy is something that I think SO many artists miss or overlook when re-recording music. Sure, their vocals may be more seasoned and better than they were. But if the same energy isn’t present, the material won’t hit the same, and fans will just stay playing the original.

All that Brandy has said is that there will be ‘new performances, new vocals, new visuals’. Whatever the case, I’mma be on standby waiting for whatever this brings. Brandy’s 2021 album B7 didn’t do much for me. So I’m okay with Brandy dipping back into the old shit and bringing it back.

In more Brandy news, she stars in Queens - a TV show starring Eve and that 3LW girl who got a 2 piece chicken with a side thrown in her face, about a girl group trying to make a comeback, and it’s actually really good. Brandy plays a rapper, but of course she still sings in the show. And surprisingly, gives a full performance of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”. I sure as hell never saw that coming.

---

💿 Album review: Full Moon