If I had my way life would be just fine

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.

22/08/99 : Mary - Mary J. Blige

This is my third visit with Mary and, whilst my initial viewpoint was one of expectancy, when I checked out my previous reviews, in both cases I was very "well that was a bit bland" - so maybe I'm just setting myself up for a fall again.  Either way, whilst we do own one Mary album, this is not it (8/19).

Yeah, it's perfectly fine but, whilst not exactly being bland, at first listen it feels polished to within an inch of blandness and she does give it the "woo woos" more than is strictly necessary.  However, my eldest was of the opinion that "it's fine and she's go a nice voice" and I can see that further listens might result in my tuning in to the woo-woo-smoothness as opposed to the possible blandness. I did like "Time" though - it's got a fine bass line to it with her vocals swirling skilfully over it.  I was also really annoyed trying to work out where the chord sequence on "Deep Inside" was borrowed from - I had to resort to Wikipedia to remind myself it was Elton John's "Benny And The Jets".

We're at #5 on the chart with a new entry on her way to a measly seven week run - it certainly feels like it deserved better than that (and I suspect Wikipedia will inform me it did slightly better in the US).  The rest of the top five were Travis, Boyzone, Shania and Texas - and thinking about it, there's a lot more chance of me revisiting Mary than either of Shania or Texas, so maybe I need to up my opinion of the album.  There are no more new entries in the top ten - the next highest was Tricky (#22) and there are some absolutely dreadful albums in the run down to that position which have me concerned I'll be forced to listen to them soon.

Wikipedia does indeed tell me it did better in the US - 57 weeks on the chart, selling over two million copies.  It also tells me this album marks a move from urban contemporary to adult contemporary, which surprised her fans - it makes the point that it's reminiscent of 70s soul, which is definitely the case.  Some versions of the album featured "As", her cover (with George Michael) of the track from this fine Stevie Wonder album (unfortunately it didn't appear on the version I listened to).  "I'm In Love" and "Let No Man Put Asunder" are also 70s soul covers but I wasn't previously aware of them.  The critics all loved the album - I'm not surprised because it feels like it gives them all a chance to show off their music knowledge.  However, the main thing I learned from all of this is that I've been pronouncing her name wrong all these years - it's not "bly-juh" but "bly-zhe".  Sorry Mary (and doubly so because I'm totally going to forget this in the next five minutes).

"Customers also listened to" Faith Evans, D'Angelo, SWV and Aaliyah - not venturing too far from the tree there.  This was an interesting enough listen, made more so by the fact that I was re-evaluating my opinion of it whilst I was writing it up - there are certainly some smooooth noises on there, so if you think this might be your sort of thing then it probably is.

15/08/99 - A massively successful album
29/08/99 - A nice revisit