#1 [url]

Nov 5 14 9:50 PM

carlos b fly wrote:
robjv1 wrote:
carlos b fly wrote:


I find Toni's career fascinating and have spent years following it. When you work in the industry, I think its always interesting to learn about this stuff. Personally -

1) HWME won good reviews but after the massive wait for a new Toni song, many felt it as a good song but not a Toni song.

2) Spanish Guitar killed the campaign and her career as a far inferior attempt to re-catch Unbreak My Heart.

3) She did zero worldwide promo. She did nothing really outside of America despite the lead single being a hit. 

4) The album (bit like point 1) didn't really capture that magical Toni Braxton sound and was chasing a lot of 2000 trends.

5) The label dynamics around her career by this point were a mess. She was on a label and working with people she had effectively sued and won. She should have battered her way out of Arista there and then. There is no way things will really work in that situation, as Toni has even admitted. Watch her VH1 Behind The Music, which Mario shared with me. It is fascinating and very candid.
  


Her first two albums are great, especially her 2nd -- but The Heat is massively underappreciated I think. It lacks the knockout singles of the first two, but I feel like it's also where she expanded her sound and the things she was willing to try compared to the more tried and true, formulaic approach of the first two albums with the big singles and classy filler.


The Heat is certainly not a bad album, no. I don't mind it but sonically its more disposable than her first two simply because she really did perfect her sound with those. 

  



I completely disagree. Her first album is made up of forgettable filler with a few really good singles. Secrets was much better, and then The Heat was an improvement upon that. The Heat's only problem was that it only really had HWME that was commercial, and big diva ballads were out by 2000 anyway.