- Label
- Geffen
- Release date
- 4th February 2008
- Genre
- R&B
- Buy this album
- Order CD
Queen of new soul raises the bar - again
Mary J. Blige’s career so far has been built on a shrewd ear for collaboration, a fine voice and an unabashedly up-front impression as a strong role model in a male-dominated scene. On this new album, she ropes in a couple of high-profile collaborators (Usher, Ludacris) but the focus is on her voice and her lyrics, generally revolving around the themes of strength and adversity – the end products is 19 tracks of slickly-produced R&B with a positive message.
As with many other artists, there’s a tendency for over-earnestness in a couple of the songs’ messages – it’s possible to be told too frequently that everything’s going to be absolutely great, in the face of everything – but such is the passion of Mary J’s delivery that you can’t help but be entranced. In particular, tracks such as Roses take a generic R&B backing track and familiar romantic theme and turn them into something absolutely brilliant, her voice by turns gentle and hard. Usher’s contribution on Shake Down is particularly competent and smooth, and although the musical backing sometimes becomes a little dull, the vocals make up for it more than capably.
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