The recording sessions for the album began in 2018 and ended in May 2019. Musically,Indigo is an R&B album that incorporates a diverse range of genres including pop,Afrobeats,dancehall,trap and bounce music. The lyrical content explores themes of spiritual love,sex,energy and vibrations. The album features a supernatural and spiritual imagery conceived by Brown,and handled by graffiti artist Saturno,visual artist Jeff Cole,and 3D artists Circle Circle Math and Sarper Baran. Indigo garnered mostly positive reviews from critics,who praised Brown's vocal performances as well as the album's production and sound;however,some criticized its structure.
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200,making it his third number-one album in the US,and first in seven years,since Fortune (2012). Indigo is certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),which makes this Brown's sixth multi-platinum selling album. Five official singles were released from Indigo,including:"Undecided","Back to Love","Wobble Up",featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy,"No Guidance",featuring Drake,and "Heat",featuring Gunna. "No Guidance" was certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),and became the highest-charting song from the album on the Billboard Hot 100,peaking at number 5,and topping the Rhythmic Airplay chart,until being unseated by the following released single,"Heat",at the top spot. In 2022,the song "Under the Influence",featured in the extended edition of the album,emerged as a sleeper hit,achieving significant international success. After gaining commercial success,the song was officially released as a single,roughly three years following its original release.
Background and recording
In December 2017,soon after releasing his first double-disc,Heartbreak on a Full Moon,Brown started to work on new material.[5][6] At the start of 2018,he worked on two collaborative mixtapes,that ultimately went unreleased—one with R&B singer Jacquees and the other with rapper Joyner Lucas. During this time,he was also recording new material for his upcoming solo project,which was rumored to be titled Indigo.[7]
The official recording sessions for the project,after the drafting of its concept,began in August 2018,at the end of the "Heartbreak on a Full Moon tour",with "Undecided" being the first song composed following the idealization of the album.[8] Two songs from the extended edition,which was released three months after the original album,were composed a few years earlier:"Technology" was recorded in 2016,while "Going at It" in December 2017. The album was fully recorded and mixed at Calabasas Sound in Los Angeles,with the exception of "Undecided",being recorded and mixed at Brown's home studio,named CBE Studios.[9]
Indigo is an R&B album,which tends to a slightly more pop sound than its predecessor Heartbreak on a Full Moon,[3] also containing elements of dancehall and Afrobeats.[12] Barry Walters of Spin found some songs of the album,such as "Indigo","BP" and "Heat",to be a merge of "classic R&B sound and stylistic,with late 2010s trap influences".[13] The album showcases a variety of productions that incorporate the percussive elements of dancehall and bounce music,evident in tracks such as "You Like That","Need a Stack","Juice","Wobble Up","Back to Love" and "Lurkin'".[14]Exclaim!'s Mike Juliano highlighted the "distinctive use of pitch shifted background vocals" on several tracks.[14]
The first section of Indigo features different tracks named after colors,each crafted to depict the emotions associated with those hues. The album includes four two-part songs:"Emerald/Burgundy," "Natural Disaster/Aura," "Trust Issues/Act In," and "BP/No Judgment".[15] Some of Indigo's themes reflect a hopeful transformation that emerges after a challenging phase in a person's life. In many parts of the album,the singer explores how love intertwines with his spiritual awakening.[13] According to A.D. Amorosi of The Inquirer,the album's themes mix spiritual enlightenment with sexuality.[13] In contrast to Brown's previous album Heartbreak on a Full Moon,Indigo shifts away from the raw and personal songwriting,and dark and sultry mood,embracing a more lighthearted sound and tone,still having few introspective songs like "All on Me" and "Don't Check on Me" that give a closer look at Brown's trials and tribulations.[16]
Artwork
The cover art for the album was revealed on May 14,2019,along with the back cover. The front cover artwork was designed by graffiti artist Saturno and features a purple-haired Chris Brown's face in space,surrounded by fictional monsters and flying saucers,while the back cover,designed by visual artist Jeff Cole,continues the supernatural theme with a levitating body over a pyramid.[17] The interior illustrations of the CD were created by 3D artists and concept designers Circle Circle Math and Sarper Baran,who collaborated on a photoshoot by Jake Miosge,Brown's official tour photographer.[18][19] Saturno explained in 2021 that Brown wanted to convey "The Indigo Generation" as the concept with crystal glass text. "On the cover,you can see human consciousness,religion,political powers,greed,indoctrination,obsolete education,and new era awakening. I placed Pisces and Aquarius constellations,... a mythological being with armor that represents the superior intelligence,...aliens in flying saucers,... 11:11 the number of the angel.... All of the details and figures of the artwork are connected to that world and have a meaning".[20]
Release and promotion
In December 2017,Brown showed that he was working on new songs teasing a "Michael Jackson-inspired" song on his Instagram profile,filming a video from his studio and playing the song supposedly called "Afterlife".[5][6] During the first months of 2018,he posted snippets of unreleased tracks,indicating that he was working on two collaborative mixtapes,one with Jacquees,and another one with Joyner Lucas,as well as working on his album,rumored to be called Indigo.[7]
In January 2019,Brown announced a new deal with his label RCA Records,becoming one of the youngest artists to own his masters at age 29.[21]Indigo was announced as the first album on this deal,with the release of the first single "Undecided" on January 4,2019.[22] Three days later Brown stated in an Instagram post that his new album would not be as lengthy as Heartbreak on a Full Moon.[10]
He later previewed and released the second official single from the album,"Back to Love",on April 11,2019.[23][24][25] The following week he released the third single from the album,"Wobble Up",featuring Nicki Minaj and G-Eazy,[26] announcing that the album would be released in June,also confirming a summer tour with Nicki Minaj,that ended up never happening.[27][28] On May 2,2019,Brown announced the list of artists featured on the album,including Tory Lanez,Sage the Gemini,Tyga,Justin Bieber,Juicy J,Juvenile,H.E.R,Tank,Lil Jon,Lil Wayne,Joyner Lucas,Gunna and Drake.[29] Some of these collaborations garnered significant media attention,especially the one with Drake,due to the public feud that had persisted between the two artists for several years.[30][31][32] Two days later the singer revealed that Indigo would be a 30-track album,in reference to his 30th birthday.[33]
During Brown's birthday party on May 5,2019,the singer previewed several songs from the album,and announced its release for June 21,2019,later admitting a possible postponement to a week later,on June 28.[34][35] He later revealed the artwork of the album and its track list between May and June 2019.[36][37] On June 8,Brown released "No Guidance" featuring Drake as a single.[38] It debuted at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100,making it Chris Brown's 15th top-ten song,and becoming his highest-charting song as a lead artist since 2013's "Loyal" as well.[39]
Indigo was released on June 28,2019. Following its release,the album did not receive any promotion through interviews or television appearances,making it Brown's first album to be promoted without any public appearances,outside his social media accounts. In August,he hinted an upcoming deluxe version of the album,which he officially confirmed on September 27.[40] On October 4,2019,Brown released an expanded version of Indigo entitled Indigo Extended,which included 10 additional songs,making the extended version a total of 42 songs.[41]
In January 2020 Brown announced on his Instagram profile that the album was about to get a "mini movie" visual version.[42] Later on March 9,2020,he confirmed its working posting a short video snippet of futuristic graphics accompanied by the song "Red". He captioned the video with "INDIGO MOVIE STARTS PRODUCTION SOON".[43][44] However the mini movie ended up never happening,with speculations that it didn't because of the starting of COVID-19 pandemic.[45]
Tour
Brown performing "Burgundy" during his "Indigoat Tour"
Jay Cridlin of Tampa Bay Times said that the concert was "a guilty pleasure",wondering if enjoying his stage presence should be wrong,considering the controversies surrounding his public figure,expressing "At what point do we -- can we,should we -- forget about the blowups and restraining orders,and just marvel at the way Brown splits into a backflip and kick-spins a 360 during 'Drunk Texting'?".[47]
The tour was considered a success,grossing over $30,100,000 in its 37 shows,selling out most of the venues,and being the third most successful hip-hop tour of 2019,after Travis Scott's "Astroworld –Wish You Were Here Tour" and Eminem's "Rapture 2019"[48]
Indigo received a mixed to positive critical reception upon its release. Andy Kellman of AllMusic stated that "Not quite as extravagant as the preceding Heartbreak on a Full Moon,Chris Brown's ninth album is merely two hours in length. That still allows more than enough space for the singer to sufficiently cover each one of his modes. Pleasure-seeking club tracks,entitled slow jams,tormented ballads,and yearning pop-R&B love songs -- the last of which still match up best with his voice,virtually unchanged during the last decade -- are all plentiful."[49]
In a positive review,Urban Islandz wrote that the singer "elevated himself to R&B king status" with the album.[50]The Inquirer while reviewing Indigo stated that:"Brown knows how to craft cleverly innovative soul and market his notoriety".[13]HipHopDX ranked it fourth best R&B album of 2019,[51] praising the album's sound,Brown's performances and numerous collaborations,but criticizing its duration,and perceived disorganization,writing that the album features "Brown laying down A1 vocals all across its gross two-hour runtime" continuing by saying that the album is a "whiteboard of ideas and nobody bothered to find the dry eraser".[14]Rated R&B also ranked it among the best R&B albums of the year.[52] Danny Schwartz of HotNewHipHop defined Indigo and its predecessor Heartbreak on a Full Moon as "late-decade leviathans".[53]
In the United States,Indigo debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 108,000 album-equivalent units,which included 28,000 pure album sales in its first week,making it his third number-one album in the country.[57] The album also accumulated 97.95 million on-demand audio streams in the United States for its track list of 32 songs.[57] In its second week,the album remained in the top ten and fell to number three,earning just under 50,000 album-equivalent units.[58] In its third week,the album dropped to number five on the chart,earning 42,000 album-equivalent units that week.[59] Just over a month after its release,Indigo generated over 1 billion streams.[60] On December 9,2019,the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over a million units in the United States.[61]Indigo was the nineteenth best-selling album of the year according to Hits,moved a total of 903,000 album-equivalent units by the end of 2019,including 84,000 pure album sales,378,000 song sales,1,029 billion audio-on-demand streams,and 112 million video-on-demand streams.[62] In 2024,it was certified triple platinum by the RIAA,which makes this Brown's sixth multi-platinum selling album.[63]Indigo became Chris Brown's longest-running album on the Billboard 200,spending over 180 weeks on the chart.[64]
In Australia,the album opened at number three on the ARIA Albums Chart,becoming Brown's sixth top-ten album in the country.[65] In the United Kingdom,the album debuted at number seven on the UK Albums Chart,Brown's seventh top-ten album on the chart.[66]
"Let's Smoke" was not included on streaming versions of the album internationally nor on Apple Music in the US; thus the track listing was cut down to 32 songs (42 including the extended edition).
"Indigo" features uncredited background vocals by Tank
"Trust Issues" features uncredited vocals by Sage the Gemini
"Wobble Up" contains samples from "Monkey on the D$CK", written by Renetta Lowe, and Byron Thomas, as performed by Magnolia Shorty and "Wishing on a Star ("Dancin" Danny D Remix)", written by Billie Calvin, as performed by Fresh Four.
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