ALBUM REVIEW: MARY J. BLIGE

After hearing snippets from the ninth studio album "Stronger withEach Tear" by the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul Mary J. Blige, I was almost certain that Mary was committing career suicide with its release. However, the 12-track album in sequence and entirety is not bad, not bad at all, but not great due to length and focus. The album seems like it plays out in three acts.

Act one has a very progressive R&B sound with strong New York Hip-Hop and dance elements. "Tonight" features production from The Runners, and serves as a subdue, mellow intro for "Stronger..." It almost sounds like an ode to the Trackmasters R&B work, and the vocal stylings and lyrics sound like Mary circa 1997. The album's lead single "The One" featuring Drake and production from Rodney Jerkin follows, validating the heavy New York sound. "Said and Done," featuring production from Ryan Leslie is a real banger with a unique blend of chords and synths. The vocals are classic Mary, and the record sounds like a potential single. "Good Love" featuring T.I. and production from the Stereotypes has a feel-good 80's sound with strong horn rifts and heavy instrumentation.

"I Feel Good" transitions the album as the first of a series of song created by Stargate and Ne-Yo, which just don't fit Mary aesthetically. The album's second single "I Am" with lyrics from Johnta Austin sounds like another "Be Without You." "Each Tear" has a heavy alternative pop sound, sounding more in tune with Alicia Keys new album.

"I Love You (Yes I Du)" featuring production from Polow Da Don jump starts the third wave of songs from the album. The record is fire and could easily serve as a future single for the project. It features a cosmic synth acting as a bass line with some strong percussive pairings and a great vocal performance from Mary as well. The long awaited Johnta Austin duet with Mary entitled "Hood Love" follows, however Johnta's vocals are replaced with those of R&B crooner Trey Songz. The song is just amazing. The-Dream and Tricky Stewart make an appearance on the album with just one offering "Kitchen" which takes a page from R. Kelly's book on how to create a drama filled song with a heavy piano accompaniment. Nonetheless, the record is impeccable, yet not consistent with Mary's "musical image." "In the Morning" featuring production from newcomer D. Mile and the track certainly stands out as one of the album's highlights. The track continues off where there latter portion of "The Breakthrough" left off, putting Mary back on track. And Lastly, the album's gem "I Can See In Color" featuring production from Raphael Saadiq closes the album and represents the Mary we expect to hear 100% of the time now. The track sounds like an ode to everything Mary is based from. The track is straight vocal and very vintage in all aspects.

Despite this album having some great song's appropriate for Mary, her "musical image" seems inconsistent and its very much in question in my opinion down to the title of the album. Quite frankly, the Stargate and Ne-Yo songs need to go. And the musical inconsistency of this album is the antithesis of a true Mary album. All of her previous sets have been longer in length and mesh together much better musically in terms of production. The album's earlier songs allude to the "What's the 411?" or the "No More Drama" album while the album's later songs allude more closely to the "Mary" album in song content and production style. Either musical direction would have been cool, but I wish Mary would have just stuck to one motif instead of trying to sequence randomness and give the album some arbitrary title with songs that do not associate lyrically with the title or proposed album concept. "Technical Difficulty" would have been a much better choice, of course if all the songs fit with the first portion of the album. All in all, the album has some nice album cuts and it will be interesting to see how well the album performs overall, and which tracks will be selected as future singles.

Album highlights: "Said and Done," "I Feel Good," "I Love You (Yes I Du)," "Kitchen," "In the Morning," and "I Can See In Color"