The magnificece of Secrets by Toni Braxton..

[Spicechinodiva]

In 1996 Toni Braxton released the follow up to 1993's Toni Braxton, titled Secrets. 

 

But she was also aware of the dreadful sophomore slump, she even said in an interview, artists can have an iconic debut era than fade off and disappear. 

 

So, she was aware just how important it was to follow up an iconic debut that won her best new artist at the 37th annual Grammy awards. 

 

The first album sold ten million worldwide and went 8x Platinum in the US and spawned hits like Another sad love song, breathe again and you mean the world to me..

 

And the main reason Laface signed her was to compete with Mariah Carey and whitney Houston. 

As LA said, Tommy had Mariah Carey, Clive had whitney Houston, but we realized there was no Home girl that represented the girls like Toni. 

 

Secrets became a bigger project and her most successful era despite hating her signature song, that was intended for Celine Dion, listening to Falling into you and songs like the title track and Seduces me, you can see where Un Break my heart would have fit in. 

 

But, the song is hers. And Toni's only and as pitchfork said the ultimate karaoke song. But just like TLC, she went Bankrupt, over a bad contract.  

 

That basically left her broke cos she had to repay everything back to her label, and I guess in 1999 she was awarded 20 million and a better contract, but a gag order prevented her from basically saying she wasn't broke at all. 

 

According to her memoir, toni said it was Babyface that actually put the ball  her favor when he said he wouldn't have signed the contract she signed, and he admitted, as a joint venture (meaning they were a small label that was an off branch of Arista records) they're hands were tied.