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Macy Gray
Big
(will.i.am/Geffen)
First Appeared in The Music Box, May 2007, Volume 14, #5
Written by John Metzger
Macy Gray named her latest set Big for a reason. Ever since she broke
into the spotlight with Try, the first single from her stellar debut
On High Life Is, she has struggled to find a way of repeating her success.
The Id was a solid follow-up, but it failed to garner the same levels of
attention, praise, and, most important, sales figures. The Trouble with Being
Myself faltered even more. Subsequently, she was dropped by Epic Records and
left without a home, at least until will.i.am came to her rescue.
Big, Gray’s first outing to be issued by Geffen, is designed to return
her to the limelight, but unfortunately, the approach she took to recording the
affair is completely wrong. Under the guidance of hit-chasers will.i.am, Ron
Fair, and Justin Timberlake, Gray opted to
wrap her material inside contemporary arrangements, which
inevitably push the organic essence of her early work to the side. Almost all of the
songs on Big were groomed for placement within the play lists of modern
pop and R&B radio stations. Not surprisingly, the results are, at best, mixed.
Most problematic about Big is its ridiculously oversized production.
The strings, the beats, the guest stars — they all add up to providing so much
glamour and glitz that the outing inevitably feels as if it has been polished
into submission. Granted, Gray desperately needed to bring a fresh perspective
to her work because, aside from her commercial shortcomings, her songs were
beginning to feel redundant. Replacing her individualistic quirkiness with
generic arrangements and gimmicks, however, is not the answer.
Fortunately, Gray has such a dominating personality that, despite the
cluttered distractions, she is able to shine. As always, she reveals her twisted
tales in a playful fashion, using, for example, an ambience that was nicked from
Elvin Bishop’s Fooled Around and Fell in Love to introduce Finally
Made Me Happy, a tune about how grateful she is that her man walked out the
door. Elsewhere, she romanticizes gangsta life (Ghetto Love), kills her
lover — before he can kill her — for insurance money (Strange Behavior),
and mocks guys who consider their girlfriends to be possessions (Treat Me
Like Your Money). She also tucks a tribute to James Brown into Get Out’s
funk break, while the first four tracks on the set ambitiously roll together to
form a suite of songs about the unfortunate but necessary shattering of a
family. Delivered in her smokily weathered but highly emotive voice, the
material on Big gradually shakes off the crispness of its production to
reveal that the Macy Gray of old still exists. If she isn’t careful, however,
she likely will suffocate at the hands of the mainstream-driven,
commercial-minded mediocrity in which her new album was adorned. 
Big is available from Amazon.com.
To order, Click Here!
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
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