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Busta Rhymes and Ludacris get her back to where she once belonged for the duration of their openers. After that, it's an expensive, honorable, credible sampler of the hottest current R&B brands.
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Growing Pains sprints out of the gate with a potent double-shot of empowerment anthems.
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She has been able to do what few others before her have: cater to her crossover audience without losing the essence of what she really is and where she came from, and so all of Growing Pains, from its upbeat beginning to its reflective, personal ending (though the last track, 'Come to Me [Peace]' is the only real miss on the entire album), doesn't seem forced or calculated.
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Pleasing everyone requires quite the balancing act, but Growing Pains confirms that while it’s not yet perfected, it’s doable.
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The various producers behind this all pull their weight, but as usual the star is Blige’s husky voice and that charming mix of vulnerability and over-the-top diva confidence.
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Her awareness of the bad times runs like a thread through every note she sings, and the album's finest moment comes when she confronts them head on.
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Blige's eighth studio album [is a contender] for being the best of her career.
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So in the end, it's just Mary: a superstar, clearly, but also a woman still in the process of finding herself. Even if that means she's imperfect (and, yes, a little preachy), at least it feels real.
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Growing Pains is an edgier record than "The Breakthrough," but Blige has definitely lost or just outgrown the brassy urgency of her twenties.
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After all the sermonizing and confessions, the idea that we have to learn to live without clarity may be Blige's most arresting, and galvanizing, message.
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Growing Pains could use more of this insouciance, or another song that harnessed all her gifts as well as Breakthrough's "Be Without You" did. Confusing confessions with wisdom, Blige would be more fun if she'd shut up for a while and luxuriate.
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She saves the best for last, though, layering piano, subtle guitar and synthesizers over a steady four-beat rhythm and singing a lilting melody with strong lyrics taking stock of life and love.
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Growing Pains finds Blige on chirpier form.
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Her eighth album since 1992 and first since 2005's Grammy-winning "The Breakthrough," the former's Growing Pains starts unsteady, but its heart beats strong and sincere.
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She keeps her most salable characteristic, her emotiveness, under duress, which provides tension but no release.
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Much of the CD feels as though it could have been made anytime in the last 15 years.
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Although there are numerous pointers as to what might have been, had Mary retained greater creative focus, there is precious little to savour here.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 28 out of 33
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Mixed: 2 out of 33
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Negative: 3 out of 33
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Dec 9, 2013
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DillonH.Mar 4, 2008excellent album. but on track 2 she sounds constipated. other than that great grl
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FezFeb 18, 2008This is the best, let Alicia have a rest with her album with 4 hits, this CD has all the hits to rptate the radio in 2008.