Album Review: Indigo by Chris Brown
Album Review: Indigo by Chris Brown
Chris Brown’s follow-up to ‘Heartbreak On a Full Moon’ is music in the comatose autopilot.
Taken from Phil’s defunct blog, The Wax Report, an extensive review of the most important albums, covering everything from production to lyricism and overall cohesiveness.
Where are all the people who are afraid Cancel Culture would take away all their favorite artists? Who were afraid they would now have to do without Morrissey or Michael Jackson? Look: Chris Brown is still here. He is not only proven to be one of the most terrible people in the music industry; he is spreading to number one on the album charts after his three-hour Heartbreak On a Full Moon streaming opus of boredom with two hours of more filler. So calm down: Cancel Culture will not ban the legendary problem bears from pop culture. We can’t even get rid of the really mediocre ones.
32 tracks. In addition to the 45 tracks from the predecessor, this may be acceptable if you didn't have to listen to them. It is frustrating that Chris has hidden the material for a pretty good EP here. The guitar solo on “Red” is damn cool, and the beat change on “Emerald/Burgundy” is wonderful in terms of production. “BP/No Judgement” also impresses with a beautiful song transition. “Don’t Check On Me” with Justin Bieber is a solid ballad, and the title track “Indigo” is a seeable autocrooner.
Notice the pattern that the commendable places are actually only due to production. Let's take again the dramaturgically great “Emerald/Burgundy” as an example, which joins with a New Orleans bounce-oriented banger and guest parts from Juvenile and Juicy J and then turns into a psychedelic ballad over an exciting transition phase. And Chris Brown? He takes his sung-in, autotune-shrunk vocal style, the only one he seems to have, and sings:
“Ooh, I'm in the stud’, just book your time booth
Ooh, now you know why they bitches.”
If Breezy is not in the mood for the inspired moments of the record, what can be expected for the remaining one-and-a-half hours? At best, yawning boredom. It is beyond any description of how sluggishly the tracklist wants to glide through the Spotify display here. Moody pop and R&B production as has been heard thousands and thousands of times with a singer with the same tone.
In between, you only listen when Chris says something particularly tasteless or his producers put a sample in the sand. “Sorry Enough” messes up “Grindin’” by Clipse, and on “Temporary Lover.” an Alicia Meyer song with tons of potential for a muddy mix and an insolubly lazy flip with wasted Lil Jon feature is shot into the wind.
But at least these tracks are bad because something has been tried that has not paid off. Large parts of this record pass as anonymously as if you had fed a robot with all the R&B songs in the world. But even a really uncharismatic sheet metal display would be much less unsympathetic than Chris Brown, who does not show an even half-sensible character trait between snuff, whiny, and self-loving.
Indigo is like radio must sound to someone who doesn’t like pop music. Music in the comatose autopilot. They are always the same drum loops, always the same synthesizers, music with an ethos of such all-conversing uniformity that the flashing moments of potential in between sound almost like provocations. Look, Chris Brown might even be able to make solid music, but he doesn’t have to because he can throw two hours of monotonous garbage at streaming platforms, and it works well enough for him. But in the time when you listen to this playlist filler in feature film length, you can also listen to three good albums. That's better.
Poor (★☆☆☆☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Red,” “Don’t Check On Me”