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Normani Prioritizes Vibe on Long-Awaited Debut ‘Dopamine’: Album Review
On her debut album, Normani prioritizes vibe and texture over substance across 13 tracks.
It’s been a very long, very arduous road for Normani to release her debut album “Dopamine.” On social media, the Nation — her anointed fandom name — pleaded for the record for so many years that when the former Fifth Harmony member finally announced it in February, she did so with a wink-nod, rolling it out with the accompanying website wheresthedamnalbum.com. And in a musical landscape where confessional lyricism is often the key to connecting to broad audiences, “Dopamine” is a record that skims the surface, perfectly innocuous and complacent with paying lip service to the fans who so longingly pined for it. The vocals are prismatic on “Grip,” a song that echoes the pan flute of Timbaland and Magoo’s “All Y’all,” and haunt on “Lights On.” So it makes sense that Brandy herself shows up on the tail end of “Insomniac,” co-written by Victoria Monet, proffering a meeting of the minds that pays off — somewhat.
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