The Best Of Toni Braxton And Her Exploding Rack

Greatest hits compilations, when you hit the spot right, can wind up rendering the rest of an artist's entire catalog useless. There are artists whose albums are generally on either side of mediocre, and need a hits record to get all the good pieces in one place. Such is the case with "The Ultimate Toni Braxton", which collects the choiciest moments from Ms. Braxton's 4 Arista albums and sticks 'em in one place.

Over the course of 11 years of making hits, former preacher's kid Braxton has made a career out of playing the "wounded woman". In real life, her throaty voice and state-of-the-art ballads (usually produced by Babyface) have sold her millions of records and won her an armload of Grammy Awards. Her commercial status has slipped lately as her albums (which started off as slightly above average) have taken a tremendous dip in sales, while Braxton has been increasingly known for being the second La Face Records artist to file for bankruptcy (TLC was the first), for being increasingly sexually revealing (the nude Vibe cover, the Grammy dress), not to mention her exploding silicone boobies.

Anyway, back to the music. This collection contains basically every great recorded moment Braxton has had in her career.

LaFace Records obviously saw her as the next big thing, because she was introduced by being featured twice on the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy movie "Boomerang". On "Give U My Heart", Toni and label head Babyface exchange plesant chemistry over a slightly bubbling new-jack swing track. It's a fun, sing-along type of thing, and remains probably the last good uptempo track 'Face has recorded.

Over the course of the next few singles and her self-titled debut, it became obvious that Toni was being positioned as a hipper successor to Anita Baker, who was THE preeminent Black female singer of the late 80's/early 90's (Whitney was crossover, y'all). Her deep, husky voice had a jazzy overtone to it, and her wounded lyrics and the easy arrangements resonated with aggravated women everywhere. Starting with "Love Shoulda Brought You Home", Toni embarked on a series of songs that portrayed her as the wronged lover, jilted by a string of no-good men. She was occasionally sassy ("Seven Whole Days", added here in a faux "live" version), and sometimes appeared to be on the verge of tears (the fragile "Breathe Again"). These songs (all produced by Babyface) were expertly made and well sung. They obviously resonated with fans, as Toni's debut album sold over 8 million copies and won her a Grammy for Best New Artist.

A couple of years later, it became apparent that Toni wasn't up to being jilted anymore. "You're Makin' Me High", the first single from her sophomore release "Secrets" found her with longer hair (thanks, weave) and a bigger rack (thanks, plastic surgeon), and horny as hell. Over a thumping, bassy groove co-produced by Groove Theory's Bryce Wilson, Toni sang (at the time) mildly shocking lyrics "I sometimes think of you touching my private parts" and "The very thought of you makes me want to get undressed".

The album's next single, "Un-Break My Heart" launched Toni into the stratosphere. Produced by David Foster and written by Diane Warren, this song brings Toni back to her sad-sack persona, albeit with a much more sappy musical arrangement than her previous Babyface-helmed hits. It may just be a result of having heard it for too many times, but I hate this song with a fierce and undying passion, though I can't deny that Toni sings the crap out of this maudlin ballad. Unfortunately, this song appears again in it's wildly popular dance version, which is just as crappy as the original version. It not only is faceless like most modern dance music, but it suffers the worst fade-out of a hit single in history.

Anyway, Toni's mainly stuck the ballad route since, although the results have definitely not been as magical as they were for her first two albums. ShThe ratio of uptempo tracks to ballads her is about 4:1, but Toni can ride an uptempo groove, giving her a bit more grit than some of her more maudlin ballads. "How Many Ways" is an airy, light groove that finds Toni in a happy mood for once. The Neptunes contribute "Hit The Freeway", one of the few salvageable tracks from her awful last albumm "More Than A Woman', Pharrell (who just HAS to appear on every song he produces) is a bit lower-key here, and the song is pretty good. It would be even better if they hadn't recruited Loon (AKA Mase Pt. III/Fabolous Part II) to rhyme on the song.

Among the other ballads, the shining tracks here are the dramatic "Just Be A Man About It" (featuring Dr. Dre in the role of Toni's no-good man), and the stunning "Let It Flow", which was on the "Waiting To Exhale" soundtrack. Over a pretty acoustic guitar part, Toni appears to finally resign herself to eing alone instead of being in a bad relationship. The song was the best track on the soundtrack, might be one of the best production moments in 'Face's career, and is Toni's single best vocal performance. She and 'Face obviously had a chemistry that's been missing since "Secrets", as Toni's success has allowed her to chase down other producers and 'Face's eroded skills have made him irrelevant.

Of course, as with all greatest hits compilations, there are the obligatory "new" tracks. These tracks are almost definitely not new, as Toni left Arista a year ago. The label then raided it's vaults for the two most appealing artist-vocalist collaborations. Rodney Jerkins provides another one of his skittish, uptempo tracks for the boring "Whatchu Need" and R. Kelly manages to write and produce the same song TWICE for the same artist. Play "I Don't Want To" and "Little Things" and tell me that they are NOT the exact same song. Not only did he give the same song twice to Toni, he also managed to give it to Celine Dion ("I'm Your Angel"), Michael Jackson ("You Are Not Alone") and even himself ("I Can't Sleep Baby"). This track cements my opinion that R. Kelly is the single most overrated artist/producer in the history of the music industry. But this review isn't about the Pied Piper, it's about Toni.

Toni's voice is a treasure, to be sure. If she couldn't sing, there's no way that she would've been able to star on Broadway TWICE (in "Beauty & The Beast" and "Aida"). Her albums (especially the two after "Secrets") have been woefully inconsistent. While there are a stray couple of album tracks that may be worth your time, this compilation completely relieves you of the need to buy any other Toni album. If you love her voice and aren't tired of hearing these songs in the radio, this album is a worthwhile pickup.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Key tracks: "Let It Flow", "Breathe Again", "Hit The Freeway"

Avoid: Either of the R. Kelly tracks, either version of "Un-Break My Heart"