‘Almost Doesn’t Count’

‘Almost Doesn’t Count’ is quite sparse with drums, a minimal bassline, and Flamenco-tinged guitar. Although there are sprinklings of harp and drum rolls to keep up the momentum, it’s Brandy’s wonderful blend of vocal tracks that delight. She’s singing about a familiar subject: “Almost convinced me you’re gonna stick around”. But the melodies, and Brandy’s velvety sustain and multitracked vocals of different tones, add urgency to lyrics like “I can’t keep on” and “‘Almost’ doesn’t count”.

On Never Say Never (1998), Brandy worked with producers Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins and David Foster, chosen by her label Atlantic. But ‘Almost Doesn’t Count’ was one of the songs neither had a hand in: Jenkins’ brother, Fred Jenkins III and Guy Roche co-produced; Roche wrote it with Shelly Peiken, known for Christina Aguilera no. 1 hits. Peiken said she and Roche “put that song on the back burner for a long time because it was in an A-A-B-A structure, which is very sort of country”. 

‘Focus’

On Afrodisiac (2004), Brandy stepped up her efforts in painting collages of voices. On ‘Focus’, Brandy’s breathy, ethereal backing vocals make the main melody even more beautiful. She sings in a rare range of tones: at 2:10, her “Doesn’t even matter” is confident and resigned; at 2:53 she sounds she could break (“No!”); and elsewhere on the track Brandy sounds like a subservient, underwater creature.

Floatiness, in a different context, was the inspiration behind the lyrics – cowriter Candice Nelson was watching a bird that was “looking off in one direction for a while, which is strange because birds move their heads a lot.” Nelson wondered, “Oh what’s he focusing on? What’s that about?”

When discussing the inspiration for her 2007 album Good Girl Gone Bad, Rihanna said, “I listen to [Afrodisiac] all day, all night. When I was in the studio that was the album that I listened to all the time and I really admired that every song was a great song.”

John Frusciante was another, perhaps less obvious, devotee. The musician told SPIN in 2006:

“She's doing something different; she's doing so many vocals that there's never a space. Whenever one voice stops, another one does something in its place — there's very little space and there are so many vocal parts that are breathy, you don't know what you're listening to. There's so much going on, you can't hear them with your conscious: You have to hear her voice with your subconscious. Even as a backup vocalist with a keen ear, I can't hear where one part's starting and one's ending, because they're all overplaying all over the place. Some of them have a watery sound, then metallic; she really creates a lot of dimension with her vocals, and Timbaland's production does stuff that's very avant-garde, very abstract and yet, in this context of pop music, I'm impressed with that. Noise in a pop context is such a beautiful thing to see”.

Timbaland wasn’t shy about namechecking himself – on ‘Who Is She to U (Recall Version)’, he says, “Timbo the king. Brandy the queen.”) The pair co-produced ‘Focus’.

‘Say You Will’

It’s a fantastic album from top to bottom, so it’s only fair to pick another track from Afrodisiac. ‘Say You Will’ is a beautiful song about, again, a familiar subject to anyone who has heard dozens of love songs. That is to say everyone. But again Brandy’s voice and harmonies elevates it to something special. How many other singers could make a lyric like “I travel ’round the whole wide world / And I say that I’m your girl” sound so important?

It’s rarely the subject matter that makes a Brandy song. On ‘I Tried’, for example, Brandy sings, “I'm sittin’ home on a cold day / Underneath the covers like a little baby / I think I wanna hear some Coldplay”. Nelson, who cowrote that song, said,

”Timbaland had this crazy melody for the verses and stuff, so Walt [Millsap] and I listened to it and listened to it and it felt so sad and so desperate. I drew from personal experience again for that, but yeah that’s how it all fell together. It was one of my experiences, which I think all people can relate to. I think everyone has had that experience and they haven’t, then they’re just really lucky.”

Brandy conjures magic out of those potentially-banal lines. That’s not to say the Coldplay lyric is bad—it adds specificy and relatability—but in the wrong hands (voice), it could be awful.

‘Say You Will’, though, was written by Neff-U (Theron Feemster), who co-produced the track with Big Chuck and Brandy herself, who was now taking more control of her music.

‘Full Moon’

In Full Moon (2002), Brandy’s previous album, wasn't set in such breathy, floataway airs. The scene was earthier, clubbier. The bass is shaking, the kick is reliable, and there are fewer of Timbaland’s fidgety rhythms. Brandy was more straightforward as a singer, too. There’s still plenty of multitracking, but her delivery is more consistent and her stance more often matches the beats.

Rodney Jenkins produced a lot of this album too, but the title track comes courtesy of Mike City (Mike Flowers), who co-wrote the song with Brandy. The beats and Brandy’s stance matching is rarely more true than on this song, where both are bouncy and confident: “We can get it crackin’ if you like”. Brandy alludes to being a werewolf (which Shakira did seven years later for her megahit, ‘She Wolf’). Another highlight from Full Moon, ‘I Thought’, is arguably even bouncier and bolder.

‘Right Here (Departed)’

Human was the follow-up to Afrodisiac, arriving four years later in 2008. On ‘Right Here (Departed)’, the drums do a lot of the work: even though Brandy’s vocals are urgent—her voice sounds as close to breaking as ever (though one suspects it’s too perfect to do so)—it’s the meaty kick and reverb-splashed snare that kick the song a lot of its weight. In the intro, Brandy double-tracks her vocals, but elsewhere the sparseness is quite a contrast from Afrodisiac’s swells of breath.

The album as a whole isn’t as inspiring as some of Brandy’s others, but her voice is always a treat. In 2010, two years after Human’s release, the singer said, “To hell with that album!” Asked if she didn’t like it, Brandy replied, “I believe a lot of the songs on that album have inspired some of the fans. In that respect it's a blessing.” But it didn’t meet her creative vision amid differences with her then-label, Epic.

Brandy has since released albums on Motown and her own label, Brand Nu. In early 2026, she won the Black Music Icon award at the Recording Academy Honours.

Top image: Mike D. Photography / Wikimedia Commons.