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To call Macy Gray's new album, The Trouble With Being Myself, delightful is to minimize its sensual intelligence and considerable emotional depth.
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Now, done with that id shit, she finds her voice by pleading with her man to stay or come back as the case may be.
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As a current-events commentator, Gray's got better beats than The New York Times and funnier lyrics than Fox News.
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Her third album reins it all in to a more palatable place with traditional R&B production and a healthy dose of funkiness.
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BlenderThe music makes her giddiness contagious. [#16, p.114]
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Macy's decision to team with [producer Dallas] Austin this time around gives her anarchic brilliance just the right creative counterbalance.
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At once more of the same and something more, a set of polished, enchantingly newish approaches to her favorite themes, from bad choices (hers and his) and rueful memories to exhilarating anticipations and beguiling fantasies.
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Part biography, part self-analysis, part feminine primal scream, Myself is a tour through familiar Gray territory, spiked with humor and her take-no-bullshit attitude.
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Q MagazineAs ever, when the beats go uptempo, things go awry... but there's life in the giant-haired lady yet. [Jun 2003, p.98]
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MojoThe best of The Trouble With Being Myself finds Gray grinning. [Jun 2003, p.98]
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Gray's idiosyncrasies are sometimes buried beneath the syrupy strings (which may have been the intent), robbing the album of unpredictable highs as well as lows.
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The Trouble With Being Myself is solidly produced, if too safely MOR to stand beside Gray's debut, and it doesn't exhibit anything close to The Id's sense of risk.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 10
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Mixed: 0 out of 10
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Negative: 3 out of 10
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ArtemHAug 7, 2003