The First Lady of Soul needs less First Lady and more Soul.<\/p>\n
From the soundclips of Mary J. Blige being announced the winner
\nfor various music awards to the prominent “F—I” logo on the
\nshades she wears on her cover,
\nShare My World<\/i> has a lot of posturing but a deficit of
\nsubstance. The producers are the best in the pop hip-hop business:
\nFlyte Time, Trackmasters, Rodney Jerkins and Babyface. There’s
\nname-dropping and trademark grooves, Blige’s multi-layered vocal
\nchoruses and thumping machine bass, but hooky songs like “Love Is
\nAll We Need” don’t give way to more soulful tracks that live up to
\nBlige’s reputation.<\/p>\n
“I Can Love You”, “Round And Round”, “Keep Your Head” and “Get
\nTo Know You Better” are all more or less generic R&B songs with
\nstatements of cool, flawless love and sensuality, with
\naforementioned “soulful” choruses and dime-a-dozen lyrics. Title
\ntrack “Share My World” starts out beautifully, but soon eats itself
\nby pointless repetition of samples and an over-languid Blige. “It’s
\nOn” produced by R. Kelly and “Missing You” by Babyface have got to
\nbe the blandest pieces either songwriter-producers must’ve come up
\nwith. Both artists have proven inconsistent in the past, and these
\nare among their lesser forays.<\/p>\n
The machine bass in “Can’t Get You Off My Mind” needs major
\ntoning down. The incessant thumping in an otherwise sparse
\narrangement may sound terrific in a club but it’s migraine-inducing
\non home speakers. On the other hand, “(You Make Me Feel Like A)
\nNatural Woman” needs a little more arrangement and a little less
\nspeed (and isn’t it supposed to be “I used to feel
\n*un*inspired”?).<\/p>\n
Some hints of soul are glimpsed in the (very) short interlude
\n“Thank You Lord”, which would’ve been better as an entire song, and
\na terrific retro-pop track “Our Love” that’s gotta sound good on
\nLP, with dust static. It’s a damn shame Blige is too secure in the
\nknowledge of what she can do, she just doesn’t go out and do
\nit.<\/p>\n
There’s one real saver in the bunch and that’s “Not Gon’ Cry”.
\nIt does what hip-hop is followed for; combines a tight beat with
\norganic soul, tells a story and invites the listener in. But you’d
\nbe better off getting it on the
\nWaiting To Exhale<\/i> soundtrack.<\/p>\n
Blige needs to lose herself in order to find her soul. The
\nhip-hop R&B market is already deluged with this stuff; Blige,
\nhowever, doesn’t try to set any standards with this one, but she
\ndoesn’t succeed in living up to her media-given title, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7598],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-39431","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mary-j-blige","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39431"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}