Girls Night Out (Babyface Album)

''Girls Night Out'' is the ninth studio album by American R&B singer Babyface. It was released on October 21, 2022, signed by A&R Chris Turner through Capitol Records. It is Babyface's first album released through Capitol, and includes collaborations with only female artists—Angie Martinez, La La Anthony, Ari Lennox, Kehlani, Ella Mai, Queen Naija, Coco Jones, Tiana Major9, Tink, Baby Tate, Muni Long, Amaarae, Sevyn Streeter, Tkay Maidza and Doechii. The extended version of the album contains additional collaborations with Jenevieve and Bjrnck.

''Girls Night Out'' was nominated for Best R&B Album at the 66th Grammy Awards.

Background

Babyface originally had the idea for the album as he had gained "interest from younger fans" following his appearance on the ''Verzuz'' webcast with Teddy Riley in 2020. He compared the process of making the album to that of the ''Waiting to Exhale'' soundtrack, which he wrote and produced for an all-female line-up of performers including Whitney Houston in 1995. For ''Girls Night Out'', Babyface enlisted female performers who primarily wrote the songs, as well as young producers to "keep it relevant and new", an idea that was formulated by A&R Rika Tischendorf. Several producers Babyface worked with "asked to make 'a Babyface classic'", which he denied, and pointed to as a reason why he "sang very little on it" as he did not want to be seen as "the creepy uncle" doing duets with younger women.

Critical reception

Andy Kellman of AllMusic found the album to have a "rotational co-headliner nature" with "Babyface most often in a supporting role" that "plays out like an experiment or exercise rather than a proper album". Kellman noted that most of the songs "would be fine deep cuts on LPs by Babyface's guests" and that there are "echoes from ispast ..integrated in clever, subtle fashion".

Writing for ''Renowned for Sound'', Grace Twomey described ''Girls Night Out'' as "a musically restrained catalogue of relationship sagas that could just as easily be titled ''13 Songs About Love and Hate''" and opined that it "reveals Babyface's secret to a long, prolific production career: keeping up with the times, whilst paying homage to the sonic blueprint of his past – an inimitable recipe his many followers have been longing to taste again".

Track listing

;Notes
* indicates a vocal producer
* indicates both a music and vocal producer

Personnel

Information is based on the album's liner notes
* Babyface - music programming (2–4, 7, 9–13), guitar (3, acoustic on 5, 7, 10–11), keyboards (4), bass played by (7)
* Ayo the Producer - drum machine (2)
* B.A.M. - keyboards, drum machine (12)
* Rob Bisel - keyboards, drum machine (5)
* BLK Beats - musical arrangement, keyboards (7)
* Paul Boutin - percussion (5, 7)
* D'Mile - music programming, drum machine, keyboards (4)
* Sahil Datta - keyboards, drum machine (9)
* Dizzy Banko - additional keyboards, drum machine (8)
* Sir Dylan - keyboards, drum machine (5)
* KZ - keyboards, drum machine (11)
* Gabriel Lambirth - guitar, keyboards (2)
* Lil Ju Made Da Beat - keyboards, drum machine (10)
* Miltone - keyboards, drum machine (6, 13)
* Ali P - keyboards, drum machine (10)
* Kenneth Parvo - keyboards, drum machine (6, 13)
* Kristopher Riddick-Tynes - musical arrangement (3), Keyboards (3, 5, 10), drum machine (3–4, 7, 10)
* Kyu Steed - keyboards, drum machine (11)
* Leon Thomas III - bass played by (3)
* Javan Wallace - additional keyboards, drum machine (8)

Charts

References

{{Babyface

2022 albums
Albums produced by Babyface (musician)
Babyface (musician) albums
Capitol Records albums
Albums produced by D'Mile
Albums produced by the Rascals (producers)