Toni Braxton
R&B singer Toni Michelle Braxton was born in a religious family and started developing her vocal skills in a church choir. In the late 1980-ies following the call of music Toni with her four younger sisters formed band «The Braxtons» and released single «Good Life». It turned out commercially unsuccessful, but attracted the attention of producers Antonio Reid and Kenneth Edmonds who saw potential in Toni Braxton and led her to solo career.
The debut self-titled album of Toni Braxton was released in July 1993 and instantly became a hit. «Toni Braxton» peaked at number one of the USA charts in NEW and R&B categories twice and brought the singer three Grammys and several other awards, and became multi-platinum worldwide having sold over 8 million copies in the US alone. Single «Another Sad Love Song» from this album reached number two at R&B charts.
Next album «Secrets» (1996) repeated and surpassed the popularity of the debut and became the most successful album of Toni Braxton so far. It sold over 20 million copies worldwide and yielded four successful singles. The first, «You’re Makin’ Me High» finally made it to #1 in charts and the following single «Un-Break My Heart» spent eleven weeks at number one and now is probably the most famous song of Toni Braxton. Singles «I Don’t Want To» and «How Could An Angel Break My Heart» were not extremely popular but still contributed to the album success. «Secrets» gave the singer another two Grammy awards.
Third platinum album «The Heart» wasn’t as successful as the first two but still sold over million copies owing to the songs like «He Wasn’t Man Enough» which brought the singer the sixth Grammy award, «Just Be a Man About It» and «Maybe». It was the last platinum album in Toni Braxton’s career and none of the next albums managed to repeat its success, let alone the success of the first ones.
The fourth studio album (without counting the collection of Christmas songs) was released in 2002 and called «More Than a Woman». Despite favourable reviews the album showed rather modest results commercially and critics agreed that Toni Braxton reached a point in her career when the songs lost their individual character and started sounding like a number of similar melodies in the singer’s style. Nevertheless, the album had two singles: «Hit the freeway» and «Lies, Lies, Lies».
Last two albums «Libra» (2005) and «Pulse» (2010) presented to the listeners new, more mature and experienced Toni Braxton. On these albums she tried to go beyond her usual route but keep her signature notes and characteristic touches. Despite the experiments both albums failed to sell million copies partially through no fault of the singer. For example, «Libra» got rather poor promotion by the record label and Toni Braxton had to terminate her contract. The singles from this album that are worth mentioning are: «The Time of Our Lives», which was rather successful in Europe, «Yesterday», «Make My Heart» and «Hands Tied».
