Brandy - Afrodisiac (2004)

Who I Am
Sung directly to her former husband and to the listener, this thanks the former for all the tears and stress and apologises to the latter for letting them down with the breakdown of her spiritual marriage. Brandy says that the experience made her who she is and, rather than being a sorry tale of love gone bad, this is a celebration of the end of a no good partnership and the fact that she is now a better woman and has moved on to bigger and better things. A slow breathy vocal over a drum beat and piano scales, with Brandy providing instrumentation with that distinctive voice of hers. A great song to start with.

Afrodisiac
Timbaland produces a lot of this album and you can tell that he is twiddling the knobs on this. This was a single release and the title track of the album, though I don't think that it is up to either. The song is to a lover who is her aphrosidiac, the only one that she needs. The clever play on words is the best thing about this song, which can get a bit repetitive. The musical outro is pure Timbaland and also pleases.

Who Is She 2 U feat. Timbaland
Timbaland provides a small vocal for this track and therefore gets a credit. This song was also released as a single and, although it is not an obvious choice, it definitely gets better with time. The vocal is quite fast over a mid tempo beat, demanding that her then husband tell her exactly who a woman that she has her suspicions about is. Another musical outro reminiscent of Aaliyah features.

Talk About Our Love feat. Kayne West
The lead single from the album and Brandy on top form. The verse has a low, quick, authoritarian vocal over a drum beat but the chorus has sweeping strings, vocal support and sounds great. Kayne turns in a brilliant performance, long before he went and laid into Taylor Swift and this is absolutely up there with the best tracks from Afrodisiac.

I Tried
Low strings and a thumping bassline provide the introduction and feature throughout the track, along with the electric guitar. Brandy is sat alone, listening to Coldplay, thinking about how she has been treated by her partner and how she looked the other way when he cheated, knowing deep down that he wouldn't change and she should have left the first time. She talks about pulling herself together since crying never kept her man at home anyway and it is lyrics like this that play on the listener. This is a great track.

Where You Wanna Be feat. T.I.
The piano is the instrument of choice on 'Where You Wanna Be', providing simple, individual note support to the quick drum beat that backs the slow, low vocal. Muted strings play over the choruses. The song asks the man in her life, in this case T.I., exactly where he wants to be; with her or with another woman/out with his friends. T.I.'s comeback is that he wants to be with Brandy and he tells her that she has all his love and he will give her more attention. Brandy is unrepentant in her stance however and holds fast to her argument that he does not see where he should be and what he should be putting into the relationship. This is a grower.

Focus
A mid tempo track, with a breathy vocal about not losing focus when a about to former partner is discovered to be cheating. The song discusses all of the lies that were told and how Brandy is too hurt right now to be civilised and needs time to collect herself and get over the man in question. The beat makes this song a head nodder and, as all through the album, Brandy sounds great.

Sadiddy
This is a harder track, made for the clubs. Timbaland provides a small vocal for this too, which leads us into faster singing from Brandy. The song is about Brandy herself and how, if you cross her, 'It won't be pretty'. Being Sadiddy is thinking that you are better than everybody else and Brandy has often been accused of being a diva. She has even admitted that around the time of 'Never Say Never', this rumour was not without foundation but 'Sadiddy' sets the record straight about this no longer being the case, no matter what gets said about Brandy in the press.

Turn It Up
Another club banger, Brandy sings how she doesn't want to sound familiar and wants 'a guaranteed single, not an album filler'; 'something to make the people shake their butts'. She pulls this off with this track. Part of the vocal is sang to Timbaland, asking him to help her in her quest for the perfect party track and how she is working with him (Missy Elliot is also mentioned) in order to represent Aaliyah, who had recently died. It does take a few listens to get into this but it is worth sticking with.

Necessary
A slower paced track, about love for a new partner. She sings about her love for him and how his love for her is Necessary. The usual imagery of swimming the ocean and walking the desert is there, coupled with some fresh metaphor, that compliments the fresh sound. This track, as is much of the album, is also a grower and needs a few listens before you start to feel it.

Say You Will
Hands down the best song on Afrodisiac. This is a beautiful ballad, with guitars, drums and the softest backing from Brandy herself. She sings that all she wants to do is spend all of her time with her lover and asks that he says the same. She reigns everything in on the voice for verse one before adding weight to the second verse and chorus adlibs, which successfully convey the sentiment for her partner. The bridge is sung low and tells how Brandy is ready to marry and have kids with the new man. This is one for the lovers and, despite being surrounded by all out bangers of tracks, it manages to steal the show and, if Brandy was willing to release the distinctly average 'Have You Ever?' from 'Never Say Never', I will never understand why this song was not made a single. Your partner will thank you for buying this track. If your single, you will thank yourself! It's that good.

Come As You Are
Timbaland beatboxes over the string introduction to this track, which talks about Brandy's womanly needs. She states that her previous relationships were a reflection on the fact that she was just a girl and didn't know what love is. Now that she is grown, the man in her life can Come As He Is, as he doesn't have to fit an ideal; he just needs to be true to himself. The beat and vocal are fast and this is another good track.

Finally
The introduction claims that Brandy has risen to the occasion with this song and this is true. The pace is lively, the chorus is catchy and the message is similar to some of the other tracks: Giving up on the bad relationship made her who she is today and she is now happy. The lyric, despite being upbeat, does detail some quite painful experiences, which conveys how, now Brandy is Finally where she's supposed to be, she can look back over the past from a position that no longer makes her sad. In fact, that track even ends with laughter. One of the best cuts on the album.

How I Feel
Guitars introduce us to this mid tempo track that details the breakdown of a relationship, comparing how things were when they first got together to how they are at this point in time. Brandy is trying to make it work and is still in love with her partner at this stage, though she needs more than promises and if things do not change, she will be forced to leave. She is being treated pretty awfully. The song almost catches you off guard. It's impact is not immediate but, paying attention to the lyric, you can't help but feel for Brandy.

Should I Go
The sample of Coldplay's 'Clocks' is fitting for the subject at hand here. The song can get overlooked on the first listen but it is worth going back to as I have never heard a song like this before. Brandy is 'standing on the edge of the industry' asking herself if she should go or stay? As in, should she knock the singing lark on the head or continue? She sings about the difficulties that she faces, the impact that these have had on her musical output and how things used to be different when it was just Brandy, Monica and (at this time the recently deceased) Aaliyah. The best part of the track, which does give the listener food for thought, is where Brandy sings how to be in the presence of people that Aaliyah affected, on a personal level, makes her stop for a second. Cue pause and deep breath before continuing. After all of the questions, Brandy decides that she is going to get back on the grind and, fortunately for us, continue with music. The sound is made up of the sample, simple percussion and Brandy's own backing. It is a stripped, almost accoustic performance that gives honesty to the lyric. It works brilliantly as the final track of another fine album by Ms. Norwood.

When reviewing this album, Trevor Nelson said, 'Brandy does not make bad records'. We hadn't had Human at that stage and he was 100% correct. 'Brandy', 'Never Say Never' and 'Full Moon' are all great (and will be reviewed soon). 'Afrodisiac' does bring a new sound to Brandy, which is no bad thing but, if it isn't broke you don't fix it and this album does fall short of 'Full Moon', even though lyrically it completely outshines anything that Brandy (or most artists) had done previously. It is not such an immediate hit as her earlier material, though worth persevering with as, with most things that Timbaland touches, it does turn to gold. Brandy has an amazing tone to her voice and it is no poor decision to have her create the music behind a lot of the tracks as well as the vocal. It was released just after the breakdown of her marriage, the death of Aaliyah and not long after the birth of her daughter. Brandy obviously had a lot going on at the time and, as she says in the cover notes, she wanted the album to be a reflection of this. The album is worth buying, though you may want to pick out the tracks you like and buy 'Full Moon' instead. Better yet, you may wish to hold off for her collaboration with her brother Ray-J, 'Rn'B' due to be released soon.

Brandy's Official Website: www.foreverbrandy.com