eMusic Review 0
After three straight albums of commercial decline, Geffen pushed for a Mary J. Blige best-of in 2005. Instead she came back with her biggest album since her debut, a work of popular soul so bracingly assured in its Blige-ness that the title — as autobiographical in its way as all the others — would have provided a readymade headline had critics not been slow to come around.
The R&B No. 1/Pop No. 3 “Be Without You” was only the entry point, though it was her most joyful since “Real Love,” a kind of call-and-response Million Couple March crafted by Bryan-Michael Cox and set to tinkling piano, with Blige working an imagined audience of dancers (“put your hands up/ Fellas, tell your ladies she’s the one”) and FM listeners (“Call the radio if you just can’t be without your baby”). The heart of the album was this therapeutic uplift at a more focused level of self-consciousness — part Oprah Winfrey, part Atmosphere’s Slug. Blige really was doing it for the fans now.
Had she waited to fully unload until the music was right? Credits list a dozen-plus producers, but for once Blige sounds fully in charge. The album… read more »
