Next Friday will mark the 25th anniversary of the release of Bobby Brown's 3rd album, "Bobby". Sure it wasn't as successful as Don't Be Cruel, but it was still a success, selling over 3 million copies. Come post your memories, pics, vids, etc. of the whole "Bobby" era.

Ralph Tresvant has told a few Bobby stories on his radio show Inside The Ride.

It was okay...he took too long though with this release...

Good memories of singing Humpin Around and Get Away with friends. The whole album however was just alright. I liked Something In Common and Good Enough.

The album version of Two Can Play That Game however is a JAM and my favorite on the album.

I loved the Bobby album my fav performances of Good Enough was on SNL (1992)

And he performed Humpin Around on the MTV Awards (1992) was also awesome

IMO Bobby (1992) is is a stronger album than Don't Be Cruel (1988) both vocally and the choices of songs..... and I still believe to this day that That's The Way Love Is should have been the first single. I missed out in 1993 to see him Oz (cause I was in hospital with a Appendicitis).

Bobby Brown 1993 Australian Tour Interview on the Tonight Live With Steve Vizard

I like this song She's My Lady that came from the "Remixes N The Key of B" was recorded in 1993.

Another gem Bobby Brown - I Want You, I Need You (1993)

SoulBounce’s Class Of 1992: Bobby Brown ‘Bobby’ http://www.soulbounce.com...own_bobby/

It's impossible to talk about Bobby without mentioning Whitney. That reality applies as much
to the man as it does the album. And it became the self-fulfilling prophecy that ensured Bobby was the last time you'd hear Robert Barisford Brown sound like a true star -- confident, self-assured, not anxious to prove his worth outside the shadow of his wife -- or of his former self. This isn't to say Brown hadn't battled for independent recognition before Bobby. After tussling for the New Edition spotlight with Ralph Tresvant, the group's official lead singer, he defected in 1986 and (after an underwhelming solo debut), was on a path to global superstardom.

After the initial disappointment of King of The Stage, Brown teamed with New Jack Swing pioneers Teddy Riley, LA Reid and Babyface to record the lightning-in-a-bottle album Don't Be Cruel. Between selling eight million copies worldwide, spawning four top-10 singles (including the number
one "My Prerogative"), and earning Brown a GRAMMY, Cruel was nothing but kind to him. As Brown shut down stage after stage on the album's supporting world tour, he began being hailed by
critics and industry insiders as "the next Michael Jackson."

But those who knew how fiercely competitive Jackson was knew he had no intention of crowning a successor, and he soon recruited Riley to help craft his own foray into New Jack Swing on the album Dangerous. But Brown was also working on Bobby, his next album with Riley at that time; and with an MC Hammer project also in the works for late-1991 release, a sort of urban-pop arms race was brewing. One from which Brown would soon withdraw, citing his own perfectionism, and not fear of the competition. Also waved away were the reports that Bobby, despite his image as the most "sex, drugs, and Rock-n-Roll" R&B artist this side of Rick James, had a drug habit. Instead, he was simply working hard at creating the opus that would officially elevate him to compete at the same level as his idol Michael Jackson. Plus, he'd met this really sweet girl; you may have heard of her...So with all these ingredients in the mix, expectations ran high for an epic that could realistically best Jackson's Dangerous album, which failed to live up to the astronomical commercial expectations set by previous releases. While we didn't quite get that, we still got a bunch of songs that perfectly captured the New Jack zeitgeist, even if they didn't redefine it. And I say "we" here because Bobby is where Brown left the periphery of my young mind (where he was simply one of the interchangeable fellas in New Edition, and then the "Every Little Step" guy) to become a dominant, unmistakable personality. I still remember my older sister unwrapping the tape as we prepared to hear the culmination of weeks of "Humpin' Around" MTV rotation, Right-On! magazine reports of arrests for lewd performances and CNN entertainment stories repeating mainstream America's princess-and-the-frog narrative of his new marriage to Whitney. It was likely that storied troublemaker reputation (especially when used as a contrast to Houston's varnished sheen) that prevented Brown from letting his freak flag truly fly on Bobby. To be sure, the album started out big -- lead single "Humpin' Around" played up Brown's horndog image to LA and Babyface's ominous, theremin-like wah-wah, while the media-bashing "Get Away" brilliantly picked up where "My Prerogative" left off. But despite its moments of brilliant R&Bluster (mostly accompanied by era-appropriate attempts at rapid-fire rapping), the badass Bobby that America came to see -- the Bobby on the album's brilliant cover photo -- was absent from half of the album. With its abundance of just-okay midtempos that sounded ripped from Don't Be Cruel, to hamfisted attempts at social commentary, to a painfully saccharine Debra Winans duet (called "I'm Your Friend" -- 'nuff said), to the reggae-lite "Pretty Little Girl" that only highlighted the superiority of its Shabba Ranks and Maxi Priest-crafted progenitor "Housecall," the impossible seemed to have happened: Bobby Brown had been out-edged and out-New-Jacked by Michael Jackson.

With its abundance of underwhelming tracks (a cardinal sin in the days of Mississippi-count fast-forwarding), I soon tossed the tape back to sis. It was a decent offering, but seemingly glorying in mundanity masked possibly as maturity. In hindsight, one could argue that non-threatening sheen was a sign Brown doth protest too much to the rumors of his drug and alcohol dependency. In fact, his much-anticipated duet with wife Whitney on "Something in Common" ended up more a milquetoast press release on their compatibility than the surefire smash it should have been. Two decades (plus a few revealing interviews and a damning reality show) later, I can only manage a pained smile as I hear Nippy coo, in her best church-lady affect, the words "I believe in old-fashioned rules and old-fashioned ways / courtesy, honesty / like in the old days." I don't doubt that she held those views to some extent (after all, she was known to on numerous occasions insist on being called Mrs. Brown, long after her career had irretrievably eclipsed her husband's), but now I know the press release was really trying to bury a much sadder story of a drug-addled, codependent, mutually destructive love. All of which was about to get much worse, as Whitney was months away from changing history with the release of her film debut, The Bodyguard, and its accompanying soundtrack.

With the relative failure of the Bobby album (though a million-seller, it was by most accounts a commercial disappointment) juxtaposed with the dizzying heights to which Whitney was about to rocket, America was about to crystallize the image of Brown it would hold on to for the next two decades. After a failed group album with his crew of unknowns (the largely forgotten B. Brown Posse album released a year later) showed the shoddy state of Brown's coattails, Brown put his recording career on hold, as he tells it, to raise the couple's infant daughter while Houston enjoyed a three-year period as the biggest recording star in the world. But as far as the public was concerned, he'd simply decided to ride the trains of his wife's signature evening gowns, living off her sequined largesse. More domestic resentment. Failed 1997 album. Rinse. Repeat.

And there, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy of the Bobby album. It's largely forgotten by the pop mainstream, despite its visual and sonic presentation serving as a guide for contemporaries like Jodeci and successors like Usher and Ray-J. "Two Can Play That Game" may not be mentioned on any of the 8,000 VH1 countdown shows, but those who know real R&B will always remember that Bobby had "Good Enough." Bobby was good enough.

[Edited 8/15/17 23:31pm]

I had this on cassette, but I don't think I liked ANYTHING except Humpin Around....

Bobby was ALL of that and a bag of chips in the 90's. Very underrated and great performer. I love the Something in Common video, always my fav from that era, Whitney was so beautiful.

[Edited 8/17/17 12:56pm]

Get Away will always be my shit.

I thought "Humpin Around" was one of LaFace's funkier tracks they produced. Bobby was always going to give you good energy. And he did with that one.

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If I recall, my favorite was "Two Can Play That Game." Cool performance from B.Brown. Love the call-and-response towards the end.

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For some reason, I've always had a strange affection for "Til The End of Time." Despite the subject matter, I found it kind of melancholy. As I listen to it now, its only worse being that Whitney is gone. Knowing that she obviously was the inspiration behind the song, doesn't help.

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Damn I'm getting old.

This Friday is the 25th anniversary.

Happy 25th to the "Bobby" album!!!

Johnny Gill posted this on his Twitter & Instagram 2day

Ralph Tresvant is celebrating his 1 year anniversary on radio today. So far Freddie Jackson, Donnie Simpson, Stevie D from the Force MDs, Johnny Gill, & Will Downing have called in to the show to congratulate Ralph and there's 1 hour left.

Shirley Murdock just called and sang "Do it Rizzo" in the tune of Do It Roger to Ralph. Ralph said Shirley was like his big sister or aunt.

Karyn White & Ray Parker Jr. called into Ralph's show today. Ray said he wrote Mr. Telephone Man when he was around 18 or 19 years old before he wrote Jack & Jill and the Raydio group got together. Ralph replied that he didn't know that Ray sat on it that long until today and thanked Ray for giving NE the song. Ralph mentioned the studio they recorded Mr. Telephone Man in and asked Ray if he still owned it. Ray said around 2000 or 2001 he had to install metal detectors because Puff Daddy stuffed somebody's head in the wall and guys like Suge Knight & Dr. Dre started using the studio. Ray said the studio business became too violent for him so he sold it, but he said American Studios is still open today. Ray said he wanted to make records, not get killed.

Karyn said that when she went to see the movie Detroit, she saw the actor who played Ralph in the New Edition Story and she kept thinking of Ralph watching it when he (Algee Smith) popped up on the screen. She also said she doesn't get that much attention today in the US, but way more in Japan, France, & the UK. Karyn said those other places don't throw you away like in the states.

Karyn also mentioned she's a vegan now and Ralph said he's been one for a year and a half and started with Dr. Sebi.

MickyDolenz said:

Johnny Gill posted this on his Twitter & Instagram 2day

I didn't know they had an album out 2 years ago.

On the Bobby album the standout tracks for me were

Two Can Play That Game and Getaway

MickyDolenz said:

What does that have to do with the Bobby album?

Teasha & Michael Bivins, Alicia & Bobby Brown, Amy & Ricky Bell, Ronnie DeVoe, Shanice Wilson at Ricky Bell's 50th birthday party last week

Everyone looks damn good