Growing Pains - Mary J. Blige > Reviews > Mary is back!!!

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Best album so far
Disadvantages:	You tell me !  !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

It's 2008 and Mary's not getting caught up in teetering trends. No vocoders and nothing chopped and screwed are present on Growing Pains, only heart felt harmonies of pain, joy and everything in-between. The title suits this project well: this is not only a soundtrack to Mary's heart, but it's also a soundtrack to anyone who has one bit of emotion in there body. Mary has proven since the early '90s to be the queen of hip-hop soul. With most of the music with substance fading nowadays, this is just the remedy that we need. Growing Pains plays like the soundtrack of life, summed up in 16 songs.

MJB shows she's back in true form with "Work That." The song is profound and inspirational, two key elements that have been Mary's secret sauce over the years when cooking up her mood music. "Grown Woman," featuring Ludacris, finds Mary flirting with a new sound. With a track that would usually be found on a Kelis album, Mary knocks this ball out the park with a Beyonce-esque swagger, while Ludacris leaves a lasting impression with only 16 bars to spare. The Ludameister exceeds all expectations by switching his flow a few times to hinder the haters.

Mary's first single, "Just Fine," is another track that is out of the norm for her. It may take multiple listens before it grows on the majority of Mary fans. Females all around the world fell in love with Mary because they related to her pain-filled music, and with a looming recession in the U.S. as well as things getting worse around the world, it's hard to be as happy as Mary is on her first single. "Just Fine" is exactly what its title suggests -- it is just fine. However, it's no "Be Without You," and it's by no means as pensive either.

Once you hear "Stay Down," your mind may time travel back to the mid-90s, a time of analog recordings, where heavy reverb was in, and where the more expression you showed, the more acceptation you got. This is what makes Mary the Queen of R&B -- everything is tuned to perfection, from Mary's amazing vocal demonstration, to the harmonies and pitch change throughout the track. Usher and Mary do their Bonnie and Clyde thing on "Shakedown," and it's a match made in heaven. The back and forth comparisons of pain and passion form an emotional unison that only two of our generations most celebrated vocalist could produce. "Roses" is an intense ballad that could very well be the next single from the album. It's the type of record that stamps time, and everything from the song's pensive premise, to its ideals on morality makes this gem something that can last until your golden years.

"Feel Like A Woman" wasn't the proper platform to make this type of statement. Sometimes the words can be there, but if the production isn't worthy, then the record can go down the tubes like Draino. Another crater in the surface is "Till the Morning," which should have been called "Till The Mourning," because it's dead and nothing memorable takes place on the track. These two glitches won't do much damage to the overall quality of Growing Pains, because "Come To Me" leaves the rest of the R&B genre in the dust of its victory lap. The song transcends the R&B genre and propels itself into musical history, point blank period. MJB captures a movie in three minutes and 30 seconds. Hearing her emotion-filled lyrics as she declares, "I am here to make peace," makes waving the white flag seem so respectable.

Mary is more than a recording artist, she is an icon. There aren't too many people that put their heart and soul into their music like Mary. She puts every ounce of her experiences into her work. Over fifteen years after she stepped on the scene, MJB is in her prime and won't be going anywhere anytime soon.