Happy 20th Anniversary to Brandy’s third studio album Full Moon, originally released March 5, 2002.
In a heady seven-year span, Brandy Norwood had proven herself as a red-hot property in the music industry while gracing both the small and silver screens—she had every reason to be optimistic about her future as the 1990s drew to a close. However, the sassy “girl next door” persona that propelled her to fame soon became stifling.
Her initial step toward shedding that precocious image occurred on May 14, 2001, when Moesha’s 127th (and final) episode aired on the UPN Network. Over six seasons, Brandy’s superlative performance as the show’s titular Moesha Mitchell struck a major chord with an entire generation of Black girls. Parallel to the show’s conclusion, sessions for Full Moon, the long-awaited successor to Never Say Never (1998), commenced that summer and wrapped in the fall.
Back riding sidecar to Brandy was writer-producer extraordinaire Rodney Jerkins; he had kept busy post-Never Say Never with assignments completed for Jennifer Lopez, Destiny’s Child, Toni Braxton, the Spice Girls and Michael Jackson. For all the star power of those projects, Brandy and Jerkins’ collaborative chemistry was singular; it was no wonder then that she entrusted Jerkins and his trackmaster clique (brother Fred Jerkins III, cousin Robert Smith, and the late LaShawn Daniels) to construct almost all of Full Moon.
Still and all, this was Brandy’s album and she was steadfast in the execution of its vision—she co-penned six of its songs and acted in a co-production capacity on no less than sixteen entries. Additional tunesmithing assistance came from an assortment of talent: Stuart Brawley, Warryn Campbell, Keith Crouch, Jason Dertlaka, Michael “Mike City” Flowers, Alex Greggs, Shaon Johnson, Harold Lilly Jr., Nora Payne, Kenisha Pratt and Guy Roche.
Of note was Flowers—he and Brandy had worked together on “Open,” her soundtrack contribution to the animated flick Osmosis Jones where the singer-songwriter voice-acted as the character Leah; the film opened on August 7, 2001. It's likely that the lush, soul-pop excellence of “Open” led to Flowers being recruited for Full Moon per Brandy’s request—he went on to pilot the title track.
Although the album’s tracklisting—numbering seventeen cuts on its domestic iteration and upwards of nineteen on most of its international variants—mirrored the length of Never Say Never, the two long players were different in tone, musical and otherwise. On parts of her sophomore outing, Brandy adopted a digitally inflected R&B aesthetic that was accessible, but cutting-edge for the period. On her third set, Brandy ventures further into this approach with even greater results: hip-hop rinsed nu-disco (“I Thought”), synth-funk/garage fusion (“All in Me”), buzzy midtempos (“Can We”) and punchy clubland workouts (“I Wanna Fall in Love”).
These attractions and others make Full Moon a glorious electro-R&B wonderland.
Amid its groovier tunes dotting the LP, Brandy made sure to leave room for several chilled-out moments; highlights in this class included “Like This,” “Come a Little Closer” and “WOW.” Those balladic sides allowed Brandy to explore softer, more traditional soul genre textures as best heard on the orchestral stunner “Love Wouldn’t Count Me Out.”
Cadence aside, the intricate segue mechanisms built into the backend of all the tracks help to make Full Moon a truly immersive experience for audiophiles. These soundscapes represented a challenging threshold for Brandy as a singer.
Her current reputation as “the Vocal Bible,” due to Brandy's inimitable style and dexterity as an interpreter of song, was officially earned on this effort. Rich and evocative, she renders every entry here with note-perfect passion; her instrument is especially fetching on “When You Touch Me” and “It’s Not Worth It.” Keen ears will detect backing vox support from New Jack Swing pioneer Teddy Riley on the former piece and the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, on the latter.
Brandy carries Full Moon solo with only two exceptions: “I’d Die Without You” and “Another Day in Paradise.” She invited her younger brother Raymond “Ray J” Norwood to join her. The two covers, from P.M. Dawn and Phil Collins respectively, not only denoted the siblings’ shared eclectic listening habits, they platformed their unique rapport. Their take on Collins’ 1989 chestnut had stormed the European charts in early 2001 as a single from Urban Renewal: an R&B and hip-hop influenced tribute to the former Genesis member turned adult contemporary magus. Sponsored by WEA Records, Urban Renewal wouldn’t have a stateside release until 2003.
While Full Moon was not a formal concept album, there is a narrative throughline present tracing the real-life arc of Brandy’s romantic journey toward her courtship with the aforementioned Robert Smith. Two of the LP’s most cherished selections, the title song and “He Is,” beamed with the joy of a woman very much in love. But the smooth, thematic veneer of Full Moon held a few twists in its surface à la “I Thought,” “Apart,” “Anybody,” and its glitchy first single “What About Us?” This quartet saw Brandy laying bare the darker side of relationships with an unflinching honesty that not only showcased another face to the project itself, but to her realized maturity as a woman.
Released on March 5, 2002 on the Atlantic label, Full Moon politely divided critics who either praised Brandy’s forward-thinking momentum or chided her supposed ambition run amok; a nomination for Best Contemporary R&B Album at the 45th Annual GRAMMY Awards in 2003 signposted Full Moon was to age impeccably in regard to its longstanding critical esteem.
Even as commitments for the record mounted, Brandy hit the pause button on its campaign to welcome her and Smith’s daughter Sy’rai on June 16, 2002; this familial rubicon was shared publicly via MTV Diary Presents Brandy: Special Delivery two days after giving birth to her daughter. MTV expanded the single episode format of their docu-series Diary to four to allow Brandy space necessary to capture this rare peek into her personal life.
Due to its abbreviated promotional stump, Full Moon didn't approximate the blockbusting tallies of Brandy (1994) and Never Say Never; its final single “He Is” also suffered too sans the marketing blitz afforded to “What About Us?” and “Full Moon.” Regardless, it sold steadily enough and locked onto a host of gold and platinum certifications in most major markets, proof that Brandy hadn't lost her pull at radio and retail.
With the four albums to manifest in Full Moon’s wake—Afrodisiac (2004), Human (2008), Two Eleven (2012), B7 (2020)—Brandy continued refining her sophisticated vibe to winning effect, but Full Moon still stands on its own. Twenty years after its reveal, it is a body of work universally lionized as one of the finest R&B efforts of its era. That it remains resonant and vital for audiences today comes as little surprise—good music tends to do that after all.
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