Expectations were high for Faith Evans with the release of her sophomore album, Keep The Faith, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on October 27th, given the standard she set with her critically and commercially successful debut.

Reactions proved mixed.

In his review for The Village Voice, Craig Seymour, one of my favorite music writers, noted that “though there’s much great singing on Keep the Faith, there are too few great or even good songs.”

“If you're not paying attention to every twist and turn of her spiraling melismas, the album passes by like a summer breeze, pleasant but neither distinctive nor memorable,” Seymour writes.

Most of the album’s reviews mirrored this sentiment, albeit some were harsher than others in expressing themselves.

The Los Angeles Times review said, “however heartfelt Evans’ intentions may be in this homage to her late husband, the Notorious B.I.G., she seems more concerned with soliciting our empathy than with creating compelling R&B.”

This was a mean way of saying the album is too ballad-heavy and full of filler material.

That doesn’t mean the album failed in any way, of course.

This era of Faith’s career is best remembered by its first offering, the Chic-sampling “Love Like This,” a retro-leaning offering that at the time was a surprising detour from the sound she offered on the album Faith released three years prior.

“Love Like This” is her highest-charting solo single to date, peaking at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 while also hitting the top 40 in other countries like the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

If you are a member of Gen X or a millennial, you will undoubtedly hear this song at some party at some point in any given year for the rest of your life.

You will happily sing along every single time, too.

It was followed by “All Night Long,” another uptempo featuring Puff Daddy (TBH, his best name in my humble Negro opinion), that went on to become the album’s second top ten single on the Hot 100, peaking at number nine.

Keep The Faith went on to go platinum, so it is a successful project. Even so, as far as how the people felt about it, the fan/public/critical reception was more universal than it was with Faith. As big a Faith Evans fan as I am, I must admit that Keep The Faith was not my jam, either.

I am a Faith stan. A Faithlette or whatever she calls her people.

I listen to Faith regularly, but of all her music that I revisit, Keep The Faith has never been one of them. I go to Faith, of course, but I also never let too much time go by without listening to Faithfully, arguably another classic offering, and The First Lady.

Faith’s contributions to 1990s R&B cannot be denied, but her early 2000s albums are just as strong.

But Keep The Faith?

I must admit, I had forgotten all about her, but upon revisiting it to celebrate its birthday properly, I’d like to offer some mild atonement.

While Seymour’s review remains correct, I do like a lil’ bit more than I did when I first heard it.

I had forgotten how much I loved “No Way,” one of the deep cuts on Keep The Faith. After all these years, it continues to be a perfect song to body roll and sing along to. It’s nice to perform the song at an age-appropriate level. I’ll have to do it more often.

There is also the Babyface-penned “Never Like You Go” and “Lately I,” penned by Diane Warren and produced by Faith’s now ex-husband Stevie J.

They both sound as beautiful then as they are now, but I only swayed along respectfully. What shifted my opinion majorly was my revisiting “Caramel Kisses,” featuring 112, and “Life Will Pass You By,” which I admittedly had already revisited earlier this year.

I don’t love the critique that Faith was trying to elicit sympathy (as a widow), but I imagine they referred to songs like these. Some might have seen it that way then, but I imagine others heard a song trying to encourage people to keep going in troubling times – a message as resonant then as it is now.

Several R&B artists are releasing good music right now, but when it comes to Faith Evans, even her offerings, most relegated as “solid,” are at a level of singing and songwriting that few can achieve 25 years later.

That is worth celebrating.

My top three Faith Evans albums will remain Faith, Faithfully, and The First Lady, but when it comes to Keep The Faith, I now fall where this anonymous person on some site I had never heard of until I started digging through the crates for intel about Keep The Faith does: “not the best faith but still good! not the best faith but one of best its worth listening to.”