As a huge CB fan the current state of musical output from him is very love/hate.
Pros, one of the artists I enjoy listening to releases a lot of music frequently.
Cons, it’s all on one unnecessarily long album then squeezed onto what feels like a somewhat rushed and extended deluxe version of an already long album.
I’ve seen Heartbreak on a Full Moon go from 45 tracks on the standard to 57 tracks on the deluxe, Indigo from 32 tracks to 42 on the extended edition. Now we have Breezy which was a still long but somewhat manageable 24 track, just when you thought that was enough the deluxe swung round for the following week bringing it to 33 tracks.
Anyone who knows me can vouch for my excessive music consumption, but for an album, I am most definitely a sucker for a short album, a quick in and out, 8-12 tracks, around the 40-50 minute run time sweet spot, that is most definitely a bit of me.
But anyone who’s familiar with some of Chris’ recent projects will know of all the hidden gems within his last 3 albums. As we’ve seen Under The Influence recently blow up through popularity on TikTok. I can guarantee with his last 3 albums there’s a lot more where that came from.
Breezy by Chris Brown was released on June 24th 2022, previously announced via his Instagram with the cover showing his album title ‘BREEZY’ shaved into the back of his head, at first I saw it and was unsure but it’s definitely grown on me and if you’ve seen that colour edit of the cover *chef kiss*.
Musically, this album spans across many genres mainly R&B, Hip-Hop, Trap with other many genres influenced (including pop, drill & afrobeats). In comparison to his previous projects, Breezy leans a lot more into Hip-Hop/Trap, less Pop and more contemporary R&B.
Breezy is typically split into 2 halves, The first half is more feature based plus Hip Hop and Trap focused whereas the second half contains much more of his solo music where it’s the R&B and Pop side of his album.
Now, this is a rollout that has burned my chest like nothing before. Iffy being the lead single set the album up to fail from the jump (in my opinion), where there were songs such as Sleep at Night (one of his most popular snippets from constantly going viral on Twitter since 2020), Forbidden, Show It featuring Blxst and I would even argue for WE(Warm Embrace)- Which was released as the follow up single to Iffy but was paid DUST. On the plus side we were blessed with the beautiful visuals from the music video!
There are many songs on the album which reflect it positively, Iffy wasn't a great lead single choice.
Onto the album itself although it has great music on there, it’s difficult to have a full concise body of work with an album this long, there’s bound to be filler tracks included. The songs on there that I like, I LOVE but there’s songs on there that don’t meet the mark for me, there should be some people in the team to say “this ain’t it” and it seems theres not.
The one thing this album does for me is prove R&B is his clear strength and he does his undoubted best when left to solely do so. Top 5 picks from the album:
-Sleep at Night
-Harder
-Inner Peace ft Anderson Paak
-Dream
-Forbidden
This album has definitely shown the ability to create a great album is there, however he would need to tap into his R&B bag and stay there,10-14 tracks keep it short and sweet, with realising you cannot cater to every corner of the fanbase with every album.
In conclusion I would rate Breezy by Chris Brown 5.5/10. It has strong highs, low lows and great potential to be a solid body of work if it wasn’t let down by its excessive track listing and filler tracks.
PLAYLIST TIME
In true ALJ fashion with every post comes a playlist, as I have taken an unforgivable amount of time between this post and my last post, I have 2 playlists for today!
BREEZY DELUXE- ALJ’S DEFINITIVE EDITION
This playlist is Breezy Deluxe if I was doing the tracklist, shortened down for easier listening.
ALJ’S Top Picks
This playlist is my top 5 picks from each of Chris Brown’s last 3 albums. From the super long albums he’s been releasing over the past 5 years there’s been a lot of good music that’s been missed out, so here’s a shortened version of it!
Hope you guys all enjoyed this review and enjoy the playlists too!
2022 has been a busy year for music, so I have more reviews coming sooner then you think. Let me know if there’s any albums you want me to review as well!