Mary J Blige - Growing Pains
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Mary J BligeEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Published: 2008-02-01
CD Release Date: 2007-12-18
Music Label: Geffen Records
Product features:
- BLIGE MARY J. GROWING PAINS
- Work That
- Grown Woman featuring Ludacris
- Just Fine
- Feel Like a Woman
- Stay Down
- Hurt Again
- Shakedown featuring Usher
- Till the Morning
- Roses
- Fade Away
- What Love Is
- Work in Progress (Growing Pains)
- Talk To Me
- If You Love Me?
- Smoke
- Come To Me (Peace)
Free Music Notes for Growing Pains
Free Music Review: Mary's Growth Gives My Ears No Pain! I'm In Love With This Grown Woman
Hit: 5 Stars
If "Love And Life" was supposed to be the reincarnation of "What's The 411" and "My Life" and "The Breakthrough", especially in terms of sequencing and mood I would say was most like an updated version of "Share My World" then "Growing Pains", her eighth album is most definitely the continuation of the "Mary" album, a more mature older sister of it, if you will. They are similar even down to their album covers, which both feature simple, avant-garde, side profile photographs of Mary in all of her "Queen Of Hip Hop Soul" glory.
Like "Mary" there is much more shine on the soul jewels than the hip hop jewels in her crown this time around. So if you are expecting The Breakthrough Part 2, you will be somewhat disappointed. Mary, having grown from the hood chick from the projects of Yonkers, New York that we first met in 1992 to the married, accomplished woman we see today, having collaborated and shared stages with some of the world's best loved performers has made an album that exhibits that growth. Mary's music has always been somewhat auto-biographical and "Growing Pains" fortunately, does nothing to break that mold. So there's really not much in the way of cheating lovers, game playing, and single girl craziness here. Mary is a "Grown Woman" now and is singing about love, relationships, self respect and communication in ways she's never quite done before. Hopefully her fans have grown with her.
The album starts off with "Work That". You may have heard this song featured on Mary's television endorsements for Apple computers iPod MP3 player. It's also the second single from the album. "Work..." is basically the apex of all that Mary had been singing and at times preaching about since her debut over fifteen years ago, confidence and self esteem in women. She even acknowledges her own struggles with it in the lyric: "I'm talkin' 'bout things that I know..."
On the next track, the crunk, club banger "Grown Woman" Mary teams up with Ludacris and starts the song boastfully with these lyrics:
"My Michael Kors gear on and Valentino,
Yves St. Laurent and Malandrino
Full length sable way down to the carpet
Look good on the mannequin
But wait until I rock it..."
Next is the first single from the album, the upbeat, feel good "Just Fine". The first time I heard the song I loved it and thought that it definitely showed growth in Mary, lyrically and subject matter-wise but I was shocked that it was chosen as a single, and the first single at that. Much like "All That I Can Say", the first single from the "Mary" album it was off the beaten path and lacked some of the gritty, urban, ghetto-girl sensibility that Mary J. Blige has become almost synonymous with over the years. The first time I heard it I was wondering when the urban remix featuring the rapper du jour was gonna drop? But I guess even ghetto girls have to grow up sometime. Thankfully Mary is taking her followers along for the ride.
On her debut album, Mary was looking for a "Real Love". Now that she's found it in Kendu Issacs, her husband of three years it is most certainly reflected in her music. One of my favorites on the album is the sizzling, midtempo, bass-booming, "Feel Like A Woman" in which the single girl from the hood who on "What's The 411?" spit the lyrics: "Yeah, nigga what makes you different from the next nigga? Seen you last week and you couldn't even speak..." has matured, found love and is singing a different tune in these new lyrics:
"I'm tired of screaming independent
I wanna start depending on you..."
and later on, on the old school, Aretha Franklin-esque (of course not as Aretha as "I Found My Everything" from "The Breakthrough" album) plea for communication "Talk To Me" Mary sings:
"I would never disrespect you, you are the head
But there are so many things left unsaid..."
The communication theme is continued on "Roses", a midtempo track that Mary states is about "the new definition of love" that:
"...It ain't all about roses
Flowers and posies
It ain't all candy
This love stuff is demanding..."
In between the choruses Mary chimes in with spoken word kernels of her wisdom, that at first listen could throw you off a bit as at face value they sound an awful lot like needless, frustrated rants but come together as a great song, something only Mary could pull off without sounding contrived. Keeping up that same let's stay together vibe on the midtempo ballad, "Stay Down", Mary extols the virtues of couples staying together and "staying down" for each other in lyrics such as:
"Ten years strong and we're looking like a plan
I'm lookin' like your woman and you're lookin' like my man..."
Another of my favorites, the first real ballad of the album, "Hurt Again" has a 70's soul vibe with in it's live instrumentation. The Neptunes continue that 70's vibe on the club banger "Till The Morning", a different kind of track for them. I love this song, I can see the retro video now with Mary dancing around a club in a big afro wig or a Farrah Fawcett-esque weave ala the "Your Child" video. Pharrell, should get fitted for his leisure suit now.
"Shake Down", a duet with Usher on which they trade verses about shaking each other down, "robbing you for your love" they say, think, idea-wise of Kelis' "Stick Up", sound-wise think of the verses of "Love Changes", Mary's duet with Jamie Foxx. In either case, idea-wise it isn't exactly the strongest metaphor but still pleasing to the ear nevertheless.
My absolute favorite song on the album though is the sad love song, "Fade Away", produced by Stargate, a definite third single contender. It is the quintessential Mary J. Blige, sad slow song. It's a midtempo ballad in which Mary emotes beautifully on the chorus:
"Sometimes I wish that I could stand here and fade away
So that no one could see the tears running down my face..."
With a funky, underlying bass line, "Fade..." works great as a ballad (think along the same emotional quotient as "No More Drama", except sad) but would also translate well into dance remixes, something which has garnered Mary a larger, more diverse, gay fan base and has been a staple of her career since her "Mary" album (my favorite Mary J. Blige record) in 1999.
Other standouts on the album include the title track "Work In Progress (Growing Pains)". It's another one of my favorites and one of the best songs on the album vocally, but nevertheless, your standard I-may-be-a-star-but-I'm-normal-just-like-you song. Think, the older, slower, more mature sister of Mary's 1999 single "Deep Inside" from the "Mary" album.
"What Love Is", also produced by Stargate is a sweet, piano-laden ballad which like "Fade Away" is reminiscent to "No More Drama" with it's choir-ish vocals at the end. And speaking of piano-laden midtempo ballads there's "If You Love Me?", produced by Bryan Michael Cox. An effort in which he fails yet again, or never bothered to try to re-invent his own wheel, infusing the song with the same beautiful, yet-repetitive piano tinkling as he did in Mary's 2005 hit "Be Without You" and Danity Kane's "Ride For You" and Mya's "Life Is Too Short" among others. Like great producers have in the past such as The Neptunes and Timbaland, B. Cox is becoming a one trick pony. Luckily it's a trick that everyone seems to like for the time being. As lovely as "...Love Me?" is, the fact that is sounds like a "Be Without You" remix can't be denied.
Like "One" from "The Breakthough" album, and "Ultimate Relationship (A.M.)" from "Love & Life", Mary takes a slight switch in genre on the last track. Instead of the respective rock and gospel of those tracks Mary ends the album with "Come To Me (Peace)", an adult contemporary pop song. I know, I know, Mary has been down the adult contemporary road before, namely with "Give Me You" from the "Mary" album, but the subdued, pop vocals of "...Peace", a ballad about forgiveness, take things a step further, in turn taking Mary a step further.
Simply put, this album is excellent. There isn't a bad track on it. Just as "Mary" cemented, and "The Breakthrough" re-cemented Mary's status as an A-list musical performer I can only imagine what heights "Growing Pains" will take her to.
If you must download, download: "Grown Woman", "Just Fine", "Till The Morning", "Fade Away", "Work In Progress (Growing Pains)"
Growing Pains Poster
Geffen Records superstar and hit-making songwriter Mary J. Blige, is set to follow-up the most successful album of her career, the triple platinum The Breakthrough, with her eighth (8th) studio CD Growing Pains.Growing Pains includes the single "Just Fine" which has become an instant favorite on radio and on MTV, BET and VH-1. The second single from Growing Pains, "Work That," is currently featured in an Apple I-Pod commercial.
After selling over 40 million CDs and garnering six Grammy Awards during her phenomenal 15-year career, Mary is confident that her fans will not be disappointed with Growing Pains. "They're going to get a sense of what my state of mind is and how I view the world," she says. "And hopefully, most of all, they're going to hear just the sincere honesty and love that I have for them." She adds, "Growing Pains represents accepting that there's pain that goes along with growing and change. No pain, no gain."
Growing Pains, with Mary co-writing most of the songs on the album, features guest appearances by Ludacris and Usher and production by The Neptunes, Jazze Pha, Johnta Austin, Neyo, Stargate, Bryan-Michael Cox, Dre and Vidal, Tricky, Dream, and Sean Garrett.
Mary makes her message loud, clear and seriously funky on the first release "Just Fine" produced by Jazze Pha and Tricky and co-written by Mary and Dream. A celebration of life, "Just Fine" gives you Mary fierce, and as the video shows, glamorous. The song's vibe? "Sometimes it feels like you're having this miserable time, like all 365 days of the year are tough. But then, you get one of those days; maybe when your hair is great, or you're not stuck in traffic; where it's a `just fine' day. At some point," Mary laughs, "You've got have one or two of those."
The party and positivity keeps on keeping on with the rump shaking second single "Work That." Mary comments, "When I meet a woman who doesn't know what to do about her weight or her hair I always say - `whatever it is that you have, make that work for you, Work what you got.'"
After releasing her bestselling anthology Reflections last year, Growing Pains is Mary's first CD of new material since The Breakthrough debuted at #1 in 2005, selling over 700,000 copies its first week -- the best opening week for a solo R&B female artist in SoundScan history. The album's first single, "Be Without You," also made chart history by holding down the #1 spot on the Billboard R&B charts for a record breaking 16 straight weeks; making it the longest-running No. 1 song on the R&B chart in over 40 years. Mary led all artists with eight 2007 Grammy nominations for the landmark album, and she took home honors for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Song (both for "Be Without You"), and Best R&B Album. After earning three Grammy Awards, she continued her award show domination by winning nine Billboard Music Awards, two American Music Awards, two BET Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, and a Soul Train Award. The Breakthrough lived up to its name selling over seven million copies worldwide.
More from Mary J. Blige
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"I'm talkin' 'bout things I know," Mary J. Blige wails on "Work That," the second single and opening track of Growing Pains. The album squeaked into 2007 too late to make best-of lists but otherwise would have stormed its way up several, for sure. She needn't have hit us with such a pronouncement: In 16 songs that ring as remarkably, unflinchingly true as those on 2005's landmark The Breakthrough, the queen of hip-hop soul keeps "keeping it real" a specialty. There's no sense in trying to assign credit for the skin-tight grooves and funked-up retro vibe here; with nine producers padding Blige's emotion-rich voice and the lyrics she so obviously lives by, what we're left with is a melange of sounds. But it's a measure of an artist who has mastered her own identity and left nothing to chance that this, her eighth studio album, comes off so free of wild cards and loose edges. "You ask what love feels like," she sings on "What Love Is," one of the disc's less fierce tracks. "It feels like joy, and it feels like pain, and it feels like sunshine, and it feels like rain," she continues, answering the question. The album feels the same way, a passel of complex feelings all wrapped up in love. No one knows struggle, heartache, and triumph over mediocrity like Blige. --Tammy La Gorce
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