Review: Brandy, Full Moon

The all-grown-up Miss Moesha seems to be making her final transition from sitting up in her room to sitting on top of the world.

Brandy, Full MoonFull Moon has been hailed as Brandy’s Control, a take-charge coming-of-age album that will display the fully-grown singer in all her Independent Womanhood. For the most part, Full Moon is certainly a forward-minded album, lifting Brandy’s typically schmaltzy brand of pop-R&B to a new, edgier plateau. With tracks like “I Thought” and the offbeat lead single “What About Us,” an assessment of post-break-up collateral damage, Rodney Jerkins dresses up his signature bass-heavy production in gritty, oft-sadistic outfits. The sunny “All in Me” spins a helix of sticatto beats, chimes and strings that is dampened only by a cheesy rapid-fire bridge a la Sisqo’s “Thong Song.” Much of the album (from the airy pop of “Apart” to the lightweight hip-hop of “Can We”) is coated in a futuristic batter of lumpy blips and bleeps. The lengthy Full Moon is top-heavy with uptempo dance tracks while its latter half is over-saturated with banal R&B balladry (the sweeping “Love Wouldn’t Count Me Out” is the album’s stand-out slow number). Brandy’s smooth vocal style is still her strong suit; she affords the tired “love at first sight” genre new life on “Full Moon,” a track with a hypnotic oscillating bassline and a chorus catchy enough to make the track the next summer anthem. If the success of the album’s first single is any indication, the all-grown-up Miss Moesha seems to be making her final transition from sitting up in her room to sitting on top of the world.

Score: 
 Label: Atlantic  Release Date: March 5, 2002  Buy: Amazon

Sal Cinquemani

Sal Cinquemani is the co-founder and co-editor of Slant Magazine. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Village Voice, and others. He is also an award-winning screenwriter/director and festival programmer.

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