When Mary J. Blige released her outstanding second album in 1994, simply called My Life<\/i>, <\/i>it revealed a deeply troubled young woman who had poured her heart out into her songs in the hope that she would begin to heal and find peace in her life.\u00a0 It was a brutally honest statement from one so young at the time and it also made one thing clear: the new kid on the block was here to stay, and stay she has.\u00a0 Life these days would have to be a lot more comfortable, at least for Mary, as she has become one of the biggest names in the world of entertainment and settled down to a family life with a husband and three children.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Her work over the years has maintained a high standard; she isn\u2019t afraid of trying new things and keeping up with the times, and she has rarely made a dud album.\u00a0 When I\u00a0 heard that her next project would be sequel of sorts to that \u201894 classic, I was immediately worried about how this thing would turn out, let alone the direction that team Blige would take.\u00a0 On her last (and one of her best) album, Stronger With Each Tear<\/i>, Mary stripped things back and kept things simple, even shedding the usually 16-18 tracks down to just eleven.\u00a0 She also delivered possibly her best vocal performance across an entire album of her career.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
So while I was hoping the follow-up would be along those lines, the reality is that for the first time in her career, MJB has taken a step back and tried to recreate the past.\u00a0 I still can\u2019t see the connection between My Life II <\/i>and the original album other than the title itself.\u00a0 A lot of the songs here don\u2019t really fit with the introspective theme of the original nor one that the new title would suggest.\u00a0 Instead, it\u2019s just an overblown, overlong generic R&B album that in only enhanced somewhat due to Mary\u2019s fantastic voice and a few really great moments.\u00a0 As with the old days, Mary has welcomed a cavalcade of stars into the studio to help write and perform this album.<\/p>\n
The overall production is slick and very polished, which at times is just way too shiny for Blige\u2019s trademark grit: \u201cEmpty Prayers\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Mind\u201d both suffer this fate.\u00a0 Songs like \u201cYou Want This\u201d and \u201cNeed Someone\u201d are inoffensive but completely unremarkable and they have nothing on Blige\u2019s best work \u2013 and I mean nothing.\u00a0 One track that receiving so much kudos at the moment is MJB\u2019s cover of Chaka Khan\u2019s dance\/funk classic \u201cAin\u2019t Nobody,\u201d and I still don\u2019t see why.\u00a0 Sure you can dance to it, but where\u2019d the funk go? It\u2019s just a bad attempt at recreating the sound of the \u201880s (which they nailed with synths) but its very light on bass and that song ain\u2019t nothing without those chunky guitar chops.\u00a0 I hate it. <\/p>\n
This album isn\u2019t all doom and gloom, though. Some genuine gems are present and help to keep it from being a complete disaster.\u00a0 Of those moments, my personal favorites are \u201c25\/8\u201d (girl-power anthem for 2011), \u201cMr. Wrong\u201d (featuring the awesome Drake), and \u201cWhy\u201d with Rick Ross, which is classic MJB.\u00a0 The most sour moment on the record is the horrid duet with Beyonc\u00e9 \u201cLove A Woman\u201d that just, well\u2026really sucks in an overly sentimental chick-flick soundtrack song way.\u00a0 The second half of the disc is a tad ballad heavy, but this is actually a welcome break form the swell of mediocre club-inspired tracks here. Of these ballads, \u201cThe Living Proof\u201d is the best of the bunch as it\u2019s essentially just a piano ballad that shows what a fine singer Blige really is. <\/p>\n
Listening to My Life II <\/i>doesn\u2019t feel like a sequel to anything and like I said it bears no resemblance to My Life <\/i>other than it being a MJB album.\u00a0 So while this album isn\u2019t all bad and does have some genuinely fantastic songs, I won\u2019t spend much time playing it when Blige has so much great work to listen to instead. It\u2019s a C for competent, nothing more, nothing less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7598],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-42519","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mary-j-blige","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42519","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\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42519"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}