FEATURE:
Second Spin
Faith Evans - Keep the Faith
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I don’t believe there…
is really anything such as a ‘difficult second album’. It is a term usually applied to an album that follows a very successful debut. There was a certain degree of expectation and anticipation follow Faith Evans’ Faith of 1995. That debut featured incredible tracks and consistently impressive vocal performances from Evans. It was an accomplished and classic. Maybe people were expecting Evans to repeat the sound of the debut on Keep the Faith. There are similarities in terms of production sound. Maybe the fact her follow-up didn’t arrive until 1998 meant that a degree of momentum had been lost. Also, whereas her debut saw Evans at the centre when it came to songwriting, there were many more cooks in the kitchen for Keep the Faith. Now that Evans was an established star and gaining a lot of praise, it is not a surprise that we see some big names on production duties (Sean Combs (Puff Daddy) and Babyface among them). Songs like Love Like This and All Night Long are wonderfully rich and memorable songs where Evans showcases her incredible emotional range. I really love Keep the Faith. It did receive positive reviews on its release. I feel it also got its share of mixed reviews. One does not hear many of the album’s tracks played today. Faith Evans as an artist gets a lot less exposure than her R&B peers of the time.
To me, Keep the Faith is one of the strongest albums of the 1990s. I want to bring in a couple of reviews for the album. Whilst not entirely effusive, AllMusic did have some positive things to say about the album:
“Faith Evans' second album Keep the Faith was met with quite a bit of anticipation. The album was released three years after her acclaimed, soulful, and raw debut Faith, and in that time she had witnessed the murder of her husband the Notorious B.I.G., which led to the biggest hit of her career (and one of the biggest of the 1990s), the tribute "I'll Be Missing You" (in collaboration with Puff Daddy). Keep the Faith proved to be a success, and she happily avoided the curse of the sophomore slump. The album scored two Top Ten singles with the irresistible dance/R&B cut "Love Like This" and its follow-up, the equally intoxicating "All Night Long." Aside from those two dance numbers, the rest of the album falls somewhere between heavy ballads and mid-tempo grooves. Ms. Evans shines when she sings fast or mid-tempo songs, such as the slick "Life Will Pass You By," but the ballads weigh too heavily on this otherwise fine album. Some of the ballads stand tall, such as the gorgeous "My First Love" and the inspiration-tinged "Keep the Faith," while others are about as entertaining and inspired as tree sap ("Anything You Need" and the yawn-inducing interludes). Unfortunately, these ballads are all lumped together on this album, to the point where they almost blend into one long drip of molasses. However, the classy Ms. Evans possesses a beautiful voice, is a gifted songwriter, and happily steers clear of the tacky clichés that burden so much contemporary R&B. So despite the heavy reliance on ballads, this is actually a fine album, and is without a doubt a highlight of 1990s soul-pop music. Other notable tunes include the beautiful "Never Gonna Let You Go," which could be classified as the last great Babyface hit song of the 1990s (that song, incidentally, topped the R&B charts and hit the Top 20 on the pop charts), and the Dianne Warren-penned "Lately I," which never became the hit it should have been”.
Keep the Faith is an example of an album that is underrated and deserves greater focus and inspection today. Check out the album and give it a good listen. I will move on in a bit and wrap up. Before, there is another review that makes some interesting points:
“The highlight of Keep The Faith is a track called “Love Like This”. The single is a mild mix of R&B, disco and funk, and that’s a sound that Faith Evans developed a bit later, on her other albums, in such songs as “Mesmerized” and “You Gets No Love”. “Baby, try to understand / I’ll be crazy if you leave“, she sings gracefully over the smooth beat. It’s worth to mention, American rapper Fatman Scoop sampled the song on his hit single “Be Faithful” in 1999.
Faith keeps the same energy with the next song titled “All Night Long”. Until this day, the song is a perfect jam for club party. “We can dance, dance, dance / Clap your hands, hands, hands“, she repeats on the dynamic chorus.
The rest of the album is filled with ballads, which Faith Evans is a queen of. There’s a bittersweet track called “My First Love” where she’s trying to explain her feelings when it’s apparently too late. “We never said goodbye, no / I never wanna feel the pain of losing love again“, she sings in a very dramatic way. Is it a tribute to late Biggie Smalls? Probably… She puts a lot of heart and emotion in not only this track, but throughout the album.
The slow motion songs flows naturally into each other. She shines bright on “Anything You Need” and “No Way“. Ms. Evans has a beautiful, strong voice, which she uses carefully. There’s not a lot of contemporary R&B singers who can do that in a very classy way nowadays.
The singer and songwriter speeds up the pace on the mid-tempo track “Life Will Pass You By“, where she shares some of the tough moments of her private life in very laid bare lyrics. She reminisces: “I’ve got three children to think about first / I’ve got so much to do“, and later she even adds “I’ve paid my dues as you can see / Been in all kinds of drama in my life series“.
From a time perspective, the track could be a very good prelude to her later single “Again“. It’s very interesting to see how her point of view of love and life in general changed through the years.
Definitely, Keep the Faith was a move that kept the talented singer at the top of the charts for such a long time in the 90s. It’s also another reason for us to remember just how great Sean Combs’ production was and how good the Bad Boy Records catalogue is, as a whole.
This album shows Faith Evans’ maturity and growth during tough times. It obviously wasn’t on Mary J. Blige’s My Life level, but it’s a fine longplay nonetheless. Keep the Faith is just one of many proofs that Faith Evans is much more than a collaborator in P. Diddy’s highest selling single ever “I’ll Be Missing You” and it should be reminded every single time”.
Faith Evans’ seventh studio album, Incomparable, was released in 2014. It is her best album since 2005’s The First Lady. Evans is a tremendous and hugely influential artist. When it comes to her catalogue, there are albums that are celebrated. Some remain under-loved. That is the case with Keep the Faith. That is why I would urge people to give it…
A second spin.