Mary J. Blige, Mary (1999)

The queen of contemporary R&B, Mary J. Blige, gives us a focused album in Mary. The album features hits like All That I Can Say and the Elton John inspired Deep Inside.

This is a hum drum R&B album, no bells, whistles or innovation here.

The sole unique and different track on the album is Your Child where Mary sings about a lover's flame showing up at her door with a child that looks just like him. In the chorus, she sings "Girlfriend, she wasn't disrespectful/ in fact, she's a hundred percent sure/ and how can I argue with her, holding a baby with eyes like yours/ she said it's your child, and it really messed me up/ how could you deny, your own flesh and blood?/ gotta face reality, there could never be anymore us/ won't deny its hurting me, yet so precious." It's a real situation and one that hasn't been done to death in R&B. It's sung well and engrossing, as far as songs go.

Jadakiss, Aretha Franklin, and K-Ci Hailey make so-so guest appearances, nothing to write home about.

As usual, Mary's voice sounds good and her music is fine and up to date. The lack of much original material weighs heavily on the album though.

Rating: 5 Stainless Steel Teefs, a bore.
Buy or Copy: What do you think? Nah, copy it.