What's so fantastic about Mary J. Blige?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Sure, she can blow. But I'm not really feeling her tone, or her songs. And I certainly do not dig her self empassioned born-again shtick. So, why is everyone acting like she's the 2nd coming of Aretha Franklin with street cred?

― MIles Deep (Miles Deep), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 23:58 (seventeen years ago) link

1992 called...

― deej (deej), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 00:02 (seventeen years ago) link

You know who else I don't get? So-called "rappers" like MC Hammer. I mean, COME ON! Rick James wrote that bassline!

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 00:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Miles Deep is a relly shitty pun.

― Dom Passantino (DomPassantino), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 00:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Balls deep more like, amirite

― deej (deej), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 00:31 (seventeen years ago) link

i'm sorry

― deej (deej), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 00:31 (seventeen years ago) link

this sounds really cliched and stupid I know but she radiates that weird aura of authenticity that is rare among glamor-sexbomb-divas. She really tries to put herself across as this woman who has STRUGGLED, and SURVIVED, and had to FIGHT for everything. She's usually more somber than cheery (she didn't seem to crack a smile once during her Grammy performance - it was all eyebrow knitting "feel the pain" sorta stuff). And she tends to stay away from all the scale-running screeching so much contemporary r&b is built on - altho yeah she still has definite pipes to spare. I dunno, I like her.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 00:32 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah she is like the glowering emo diva of soul, love her lots

― Jaufre Rudel (Jaufre Rudel), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 02:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Sure, we've all been aware of her since the days of Heavy D. and the Boys, but this seems to be HER moment, HER year - she just gets BIGGER & BIGGER. So, I brought up the fact that I'm not feeling it, and if she's so friggin' fantastic then somebody explain the appeal (as Shakey has sincerely done). OK; the gravitas.

meh.

― MIles Deep (Miles Deep), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 02:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I also found "The Breakthrough" one of the most plainly *listenable* albums of the past 15 months. It's got tunes and hooks to spare on top of what she has to say. But if you don't dig her, you don't dig her.

― went to a lame show on fri (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 03:14 (seventeen years ago) link

http://robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/blige-03.php

― went to a lame show on fri (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 03:17 (seventeen years ago) link

thanx.

― MIles Deep (Miles Deep), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 03:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Her public persona repulses me more than Beyonce's ever will, but she's got the tunes. "Be Without You" made my top ten last year.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 03:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Alfred, read Christgau's thoughts on the public persona as linked above. . . .

― went to a lame show on fri (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 04:08 (seventeen years ago) link

The only thing fantastic about her is that she will someday stop making music. I'm so tired of her self-important bullshit faux-regal persona.

― brightscreamer (brightscreamer), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:11 (seventeen years ago) link

So whose self-important bullshit faux-royal persona *do* you like?

― went to a lame show on fri (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:23 (seventeen years ago) link

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b361/tapestore/Bono.jpg

― Tape Store (Tape Store), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Unsurprisingly, I hate it in Bono, too.

― brightscreamer (brightscreamer), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Her public persona repulses me more than Beyonce's ever will, but she's got the tunes. "Be Without You" made my top ten last year.

how so? i'm surprised that anyone could be turned off by mary but not beyoncé, who strikes me as far more obviously/unashamedly obnoxious.

She really tries to put herself across as this woman who has STRUGGLED, and SURVIVED, and had to FIGHT for everything

i agree with this, but i think what makes mary really special is that this central theme imbues everything else she sings about, but not in an overbearing way - all the other emotions are enhanced because of what it's taken to get her there. in anyone else's hands 'family affair' would have been a by-the-numbers club tune but when mary sings it it's this amazingly joyful, grateful, life-affirming classic.

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 09:08 (seventeen years ago) link

how so? i'm surprised that anyone could be turned off by mary but not beyoncé, who strikes me as far more obviously/unashamedly obnoxious.

I would imagine some might find the authenticity signifiers Mary carries around with her repulsive. Beyonce doesn't have that particular set of baggage.

― The Reverend (Rodney J. Greene), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 10:31 (seventeen years ago) link

It was funny to see her on the Jo Whiley TV show a few years back talking about cocaine with Brandon Block.

'All That I Can Say' is an under-rated tune.

― resumo impetus (blueski), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 11:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I like how everyone is pretending the question-asker is actually interested in having his mind changed about Mary J.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 11:13 (seventeen years ago) link

indeed but it's nice to talk about mary j anyway, i think.

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 11:15 (seventeen years ago) link

I like how everyone is pretending the question-asker is actually interested in having his mind changed about Mary J.

only 1 ILM question in 100 is of the 'i'm open to persuasion' kind.

― resumo impetus (blueski), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 11:25 (seventeen years ago) link

There are at least five Blige songs I'll pack with me anywhere, less so with Beyonce; it doesn't mean dislike Beyonce. I mean, both artsits show what a sinister hold New Age exerts on men and women.

As for Bono, until recently his self-importance rarely interfered with my enjoying a couple of U2 albums (the most I can stand anyway). He's tried har (with mixed success, admittedly) to undercut the pomp with self-deprecation.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 12:09 (seventeen years ago) link

'All That I Can Say' is an under-rated tune.

Aye. You can definitely tell it's Lauryn's "voice", though. But the two of them aren't so far off from each other.

― The Reverend (Rodney J. Greene), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 12:47 (seventeen years ago) link

I love Mary J, but then I love U2. In the past few years, each has put on one of the best non-club performances I've ever seen. I truly believe their bullshit, but then I think they do, too.

― Pete Scholtes (Complicated Pete), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 15:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Mary J is awesome when her emotion doesn't distort her pitch to the point where she might as well be singing a differnt song from the one she's performing; this is one reason why I've been loving her recent performances a lot more than her older ones.

― Jesus Dan (dan perry), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link

My Life is a classic album and she's had 'comebacks' every year since, what, "No More Drama" or "Family Affair" or something. Breakthrough is my favorite since My Life. Good xgau review, despite its wrongness

― deej (deej), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 17:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Saying Beyonce is better than Mary J is like o_O

― deej (deej), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

You must not know 'bout me. I actually am open to having my mind changed on this, and some other matters as well. I hate to feel like I'm missing out on a good thing. I always enjoyed "I'm Going Down", but that's about it.

― MIles Deep (Miles Deep), Thursday, 15 February 2007 03:10 (seventeen years ago) link

a friend played me No More Drama ages ago and am reminded again how amazing a song it is. Don't know her stuff that well -what else is that sort of good?

― skooldog (skooldogg), Thursday, 15 February 2007 10:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Mary J's performance on last year's American Idol (with... what was that guy's name? Mr. Shooby-doo Jazzman?) actually had me in tears. So so awesome.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:16 (seventeen years ago) link

OTM.

i *heart MJB.

is miles deep PEW?

― stevie (stevie2), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

i have loved mary forever, my fave r&b singer after mariah, but i really did not like the breakthrough at all, for the record. anyway, the appeal of mary is that she's very much a woman, not a girl, and she has been from the beginning. she has been very open about her life, so open that you can't help but to be pulled in by it, engage with her. her monologues are very much dialogues -- we respond because her honesty and earnestness are so apparent. she has also quite obviously been in very intense therapy for a long time, and there's a commonality of language that she uses that's very familiar. she feels like a real person but sings like a fucking god. how can you not love her?

― Jams Murphy (ystrickler), Thursday, 15 February 2007 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link

jams otm! :)

(except about the breakthrough)

there's something about mary j in teedra moses, who is also very much a grown woman

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Thursday, 15 February 2007 16:57 (seventeen years ago) link

they both have this tremendous store of emotional wisdom; songs which make you feel, instinctively, what the singer feels; and then you hear the lyrics, and when they sink in you realise, y'know, they have proper life lessons in them.

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Thursday, 15 February 2007 17:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I like her DESPITE the approving things jams cite. She's a great singer because she forces you to ignore the awfulness of the therapeutic clichés in which she invests so much.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 February 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Soto en el dinero.

― The Reverend shines like a lighthouse (Rodney J. Greene), Thursday, 15 February 2007 17:24 (seventeen years ago) link

i agree about teedra, lex. it's also why tori alamaze's "don't cha" is so much better than the pussycat dolls'.

― Jams Murphy (ystrickler), Thursday, 15 February 2007 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Please tell me this thread is one long joke. There is not one drop of sincerity in Mary J Blige.

― brightscreamer (brightscreamer), Friday, 16 February 2007 01:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Like James Brown, music would have been better today had Mary J. Blige never happened.

― Geir Hongro (geirhong), Friday, 16 February 2007 01:15 (seventeen years ago) link

eventually the polluted river had to give him up, i suppose

― bohren un der club of gear (bohren un der club of gear), Friday, 16 February 2007 01:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Like a cockroach crawlin' on a white rug.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 16 February 2007 01:18 (seventeen years ago) link

That one-two punch of WTF is pretty impressive, tho.

― David RER (Frank Fiore), Friday, 16 February 2007 02:45 (seventeen years ago) link

KILLFILE HOW-TO

― The Many Faces of Gordon Jump (Leon), Friday, 16 February 2007 03:21 (seventeen years ago) link

She's a great singer because she forces you to ignore the awfulness of the therapeutic clichés in which she invests so much.

Change "ignore" to "buy into" and you've explained the appeal of maybe like 95 percent of R&B vocalists worth listening to of at least the last 30 years (and maybe forever).

I think what Mary does is the very opposite of forcing you to ignore. That's coming from within, dude.

― Richj (Richj), Friday, 16 February 2007 06:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, there's not much point to her *without* that stuff. That's like saying you dig Johnny Rotten except for all his champing at the leash, or George Jones except for the woe.

― cynical and vile (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Friday, 16 February 2007 08:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, c'mon, Blige's therapy-speak was less marked in the early/mid-nineties! (and George Jones is a lot funnier than Mary, but the comparison's not fair for either of them)

― Alfred Soto (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 16 February 2007 13:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I was just dropping some shorthand.

― cynical and vile (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:28 (seventeen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.