Ultimate Toni Braxton CD

Slide-pack edition of this release, a no-frills CD packaging featuring an outer slipcase with the original cover artwork and an inner 'slider' including a CD. There is no CD booklet in this package. The Ultimate Toni Braxton features 18 soulful tracks including 'Unbreak My Heart', 'Another Sad Love Song' and 'How Many Ways'. Sony/BMG. 2007.

Personnel includes: Toni Braxton (vocals); Loon, Babyface.
Producers includes: Antonio "LA" Reid, Babyface, Daryl Simmons, Jon Gass, Vincent Herbert.
Recorded between 1992 & 2003.
Most modern-day female pop singers start their careers doing their sexy, stylish dance-oriented material then settle into a career as an adult contemporary crooner. Toni Braxton didn't follow that route. She started the '90s singing elegant, refined quiet storm ballads and ended it singing sleek dance-pop tunes as she slinked around in skimpy outfits. She wasn't the only one of her peers to follow this trajectory -- Mariah Carey pretty much did the same thing, only to the extreme -- but it's a little odd to listen to Braxton evolve from the sophisticated urban contemporary crooner to oversexed R&B thrush, even if it's not a bad thing at all. One thing that elevated Braxton above her peers is that she was a controlled, powerful singer who rarely oversang, and she had a good selection of material, much of it written or co-written by Babyface. That's why her 18-track hits collection Ultimate Toni Braxton works well even through her shifts in style -- she is a confident enough performer to sell both the slow romantic ballads and material that swings harder. That's not to say that there aren't some slow spots here -- the previously unreleased cuts are no great shakes, and sometimes the abundance of slow numbers makes things sound too samey -- but she was one of the top urban soul singers of the '90s, and this is the album that illustrates why. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Perhaps the greatest of Toni Braxton's seemingly endless talents is her ability to sing anything from the most sensual modern soul to unabashedly romantic MOR ballads, all with equal conviction and authenticity. ULTIMATE TONI BRAXTON spotlights both of those sides of the diva's musical personality, and many other places in between. The collection lives up to its name, covering all of the biggest hits Braxton scored in the 1990s and early '00s. From the down-and-dirty groaning of "Seven Whole Days" (presented here in a particularly funky live version) to the aching, lump-in-the-throat swoon of her most recognizable song, "Unbreak My Heart," Braxton is never less than fully committed to the material, both technically and emotionally. It helps, of course, that in Babyface she had one of the all-time great R&B songsmiths. This album is as much a showcase for Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds's production and writing as it is for Braxton's vocal chops, and contains some of his very best efforts in these areas. As it features many of the most definitive soul tracks of the modern era, ULTIMATE TONI BRAXTON could just as easily be called "Ultimate R&B."