FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Toni Braxton – Spell My Name
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I have included…
Toni Braxton a fair bit on my blog through the years. I have not mentioned her latest studio album, Spell My Name. The ninth studio album from the R&B legend, it was released by Island Records on 28th August, 2020. For this amazing album, Braxton assumed more control in terms of writing and producing the material. Spell My Name also features a range of collaboration, including appearances from H.E.R. and Missy Elliott. Quite underrated in my opinion, I wanted to shine some new light on an album that has a lot to offer. Before coming to two differing reviews, I want to quote from a couple of interviews. The Guardian interviewed Braxton in August 2020. It is interesting learning more from one of music’s most influential legends:
“I didn’t realise I could sing until my teenage years. Singing was so much a part of me and my family. We got up, we sang, we went to bed. I think at elementary school I realised I had a different tone. My voice was always low. I remember everyone in class singing Joy to the World and I was the only one who couldn’t sing it in the key. I was always the kid in the room with the low voice that made you turn around.
Nobody believes how I was discovered. They think it’s a story for publicity, but it’s absolutely true. I was in college and one day I was at the gas station, singing to myself while I filled the car. The attendant [William E Pettaway Jr, writer of Girl You Know It’s True, by Milli Vanilli] comes up to me and tells me he likes my voice and that he’d like to do some demos with me. I thought it was just a line, but I went with it and here I am. He went on to buy the gas station!
I regret not having more sex when I was younger. I should have drank more. I should have partied more. Smoked more, even. I think my religious upbringing stopped me doing a lot of things that I should have done. It’s not a good look at the age I am now. The way it works is you do that stuff in your 20s and 30s and then in your 40s you’ve earned enough to pay for the therapy.
I was starstruck meeting Stevie Wonder. He was touching my face – which is how he “sees” – and telling me how beautiful I was. I was, like: “You could cop a feel right now, Stevie, and I wouldn’t care – you’re Stevie Wonder!” I’m a huge fan. Meeting him was absolutely massive to me”.
One of my favourite artists ever, another reason I wanted to highlight Spell My Name is that Toni Braxton’s eponymous debut album is thirty in July. A month where a lot of terrific albums have big anniversaries, Braxton has lost none of her magic, passion and talent. Her latest album is one that needs to be heard by more people. FAULT chatted with Toni Braxton in December 2020 about her latest album. I have selected a few questions from their discussion:
“Do you feel you achieved everything you wanted to with the Spell My Name album?
Toni Braxton: I think I did – sometimes the concept of an album comes to me right at the start, and sometimes it comes at the end, but for this particular project it all came together pretty quickly. I knew I was going to do a heartbreak album, but one with a lot of hope in it.
There’s always been an old school versus new school R&B discussion, but you bridged the gap working with both longtime practitioners and relative newcomers this album – was that a conscious decision?
Toni Braxton: I’ve always wanted to collaborate on a song with Missy, I’m a huge fan of her work. HER is very talented – she’s a musician who plays a roster of different instruments, and I was impressed when I saw her on a morning show playing the piano – she reminded me of myself as a young musician. So it was more out of admiration for the different artists than a statement.
What would you say was the most challenging part of your musical journey so far?
Toni Braxton: My lack of knowledge about the business side of the industry. As an artist, I just wanted to sing and let my art to be out there, but it’s a journey that you have to take by yourself, and thankfully along the way it got better.
I think your learning moments also helped educate other artists on their journey – does that give you some comfort?
Toni Braxton: I think so, I also learned a lot from other artists like Anita Baker, Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston. I was in 12th grade when Whitney came out, and I loved her so much, and I think you always have to pay it forward.
You’ve seen the industry change during your tenure as an artist, do you feel enough real progress has made?
Toni Braxton: It’s changing slowly, but women still aren’t heads of record companies, and there are so many talented female writers and producers that you don’t hear about. We’re not celebrated like men are. Missy Elliot, for instance, is a fantastic producer and writer but I don’t feel that’s truly appreciated. The same goes for me, Mariah, Alicia Keys and so many others but I find with guys in the business, they’re always being bigged up for their talent while people don’t recognise the talents of female artists the same way.
What do you want your art to say about you?
Toni Braxton: That I’m a risk-taker, a trendsetter and a real talent”.
I am going to get to some reviews for Spell My Name. Many were not taken with the number of ballads on Spell My Name. Maybe more synonymous with more energised, sultry, or spirited songs, the 2020 album does seem more introspective and slower than some of Braxton’s earlier work. This is what CLASH observed in their review of an album that deserves a lot more love and revisiting:
“Toni Braxon is an unimpeachable icon, one of the voices who reconfigured R&B during its 90s Imperial phase. Later turning her hand to acting with a run of hugely successful Broadway appearances, her 2018 album ‘Sex & Cigarettes’ lit up the charts. Clearly, this American legend has nothing to prove.
‘Spell My Name’ is hard to fault, then, but also difficult to truly love – her new album, it’s a slight affair, clocking in at a slender 10 songs, one of which is technically a ‘bonus’.
‘Un-Break My Heart’ goddess is an impeccable vocalist, and the highs on display rank with some of the best of her career. ‘Gotta Move On’ for example, pairs Toni Braxton with modern day trailblazer H.E.R., while the vastly popular single ‘Do It’ couples the divine R&B chanteusse with indefatigable creative iconoclast Missy Elliott.
Aside from these songs – and frisky opener ‘Dance’ – it’s a largely down tempo affair, and this leads to each song blurring into the next. There’s a preponderance of slo-mo balladry, and while the likes of ‘Spell My Name’ and ‘Happy Without Me’ are expertly sung, it’s no more than that – the sound of a legend showing off her chops, maybe, but ceding ground at the cutting edge.
It’s far from a failure, with ‘Spell My Name’ boasting moments of rich maturity, the kind of lyrical openness that has always made her work so intriguing. Yet there’s also an unwillingness to embrace contemporary movements in R&B, in the manner of, say, Brandy’s recent LP.
But perhaps that’s churlish. Toni Braxton has more than earned the right to exist on her own terms, and fans will find much to adore on her tenth studio album.
6/10”.
In this feature that revisits incredible albums from the past five years, a treasure from 2020 came in the form of Toni Braxton’s Spell My Name. It is an album that gets more stronger and more rewarding the more you listen to it. In a four-star review, The Guardian offered the following observations and impressions:
“It’s been eight years since Brandy’s last album – forgivable for someone who’s “been an original since 1994”, as she boasts on I Am More on this new one. The R&B singer is such an icon that when you google the phrase “the vocal bible” her picture comes up, all thanks to the supremacy and range of her voice.
B7 isn’t exclusively a trip down memory lane, but it does cruise past a few old haunts. Brandy’s trademark raspy vocals and sublime harmonies on Rather Be and Lucid Dreams are nostalgia-inducing for anyone who grew up listening to her acrobatic riffs and runs. Baby Mama featuring Chance the Rapper is a rhapsody to her 18-year old daughter and an anthem for single mothers. “I’m every woman,” she sings, evoking Chaka Khan and Whitney Houston.
Perhaps Brandy shouldn’t quit her day job when it comes to rapping – her attempt on High Heels is so-so – but the singer sure knows how to duet. Love Again, featuring Daniel Caesar, ripples with lavish melodies, and their layered and distinct voices marry to create the bespoke cocktail your strange summer’s been missing. So good it could square up to 1998’s beloved The Boy Is Mine”.
If you are a fan of Toni Braxton or not, I would recommend that you listen to the wonderful Spell My Name. Maybe there are one or two tracks that are a bit similar or could be nixed, there are also some modern-day Braxton classics. I especially love Dance, Do It and Happy Without Me. Such an influential artist, let’s hope there are more albums from the iconic Toni Braxton. Spell Me Name, whilst not up there with her very best, is a worthy and solid album with many highlights and deeper cuts. It shows that, nearly thirty years since her debut album, she is an artist we…
ALL should cherish.