Brandy's 'Afrodisiac' Turns 20

[JustCKing]

Underrated gem of an album. This dropped late June 2004. Leading up to this album, I was kind of on the fence about because the teaser song, "Turn It Up" produced by Timbaland wasn't my cup of tea. Then there was much made of Timbaland helming the album, which I wasn't excited about because outside of Bubba Sparxxx's Deliverance album, Jay Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and the unreleased Kiley Dean album, I wasn't really feeling Timbaland's production much even though he was my favorite producer.

I was more excited that Brandy was working with Kanye who at the time had just laced Alicia with "You Don't Know My Name". Tim was on that album as well, and his track for Alicia for was one of the weaker ones on the album. Kanye had also just laced Monica with "Knock, Knock" and there was of course his own College Dropout, and his work on Jay Z's The Black Album. Then Brandy's "Talk About Our Love" dropped and restored the feeling. It had 106 & Park on lock. I was never a Brandy fan like that, but this song had me hyped. Loved all of Brandy's singles except "What About Us", but never checked a Brandy album until Afrodisiac. Snippets of the song "Afrodisiac", "Who Is She To You" and "Finally" leaked online and I was even more hyped.

Album dropped and I thought it was dope. As time passed, the more I loved the album. Even songs I didn't like initially have become favorites.

Since its release, it has become quite influential. Rihanna cites it as inspiration for her breakthrough album, Good Girl Gone Bad. It does have some obvious likenesses (listen to "Rehab" and "I Tried"). The guitarist for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers even cited the album as an influence:

In fact, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante has said that Brandy was a huge inspiration behind his guitar work on RHCP’s Album of the Year Grammy nominee, the double-disc Stadium Arcadium.

“She's doing something different; she's doing so many vocals that there's never a space. Whenever one voice stops, another one does something in its place — there's very little space and there are so many vocal parts that are breathy, you don't know what you're listening to. There's so much going on, you can't hear them with your conscious: You have to hear her voice with your subconscious. Even as a backup vocalist with a keen ear, I can't hear where one part's starting and one's ending, because they're all overplaying all over the place. Some of them have a watery sound, then metallic; she really creates a lot of dimension with her vocals, and Timbaland's production does stuff that's very avant-garde, very abstract and yet, in this context of pop music, I'm impressed with that. Noise in a pop context is such a beautiful thing to see,” Frusciante told Spin in 2006.

Thoughts on this album: