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We live in an era of fierce ruling divas. And yet among the pack, Mary J. Blige has always stood alone. Perhaps because Blige (often imitated, never duplicated) has always incorporated an element of the personal in her songs, making each album a diary of her daily struggles. Even if we might not all have much sympathy for the problems of a multi-platinum artist, it's cut through the typical layers of pop artifice, and certainly made for good musical soap opera. Clearly 2001's "No More Drama" was a suggestion more than a declaration.
After 2003's somewhat meandering Love & Life, Blige is back with The Breakthrough, the title more a reference to an emotional watershed than any radical artistic shift. Still focusing on the personal, Blige is as positive and full of praise as she's ever been throughout the disc's 16 tracks, including "No One Will Do," "About You," "Be Without You," "Take Me As I Am," the intense, interventional "Good Woman Down," the churchy "I Found My Everything," and the psychologically heavy "Father In You," which echoes vintage Marvin Gaye. She's also in great voice, frequently recalling Aretha, Labelle, Lyn Collins, and Betty Davis—comparisons not to be thrown around lightly. Nor do them seem accidental. From the inner booklet's Foxy Brown outfit to production by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (among many others), to samples of the O'Jays, Nina Simone (whom Blige will portray in an upcoming film), Meli'sa Morgan, Lonnie Liston Smith, Willie Hutch, and the Trammps, Mary J. is stepping back to a classic era of R&B.
Man problems are also a common theme of '70s soul, and Mary J. has plenty of them here on "Enough Cryin'," "Baggage," the inspired "Ain't Really Love," and elsewhere. In fact, the two themes (basically he loves me/he loves me not) alternate so much that the disc could be classified a concept album on bipolar disorder. With the number of producers involved in the double digits, you'd expect many more ideas about how to best represent Blige's considerable talents. In several cases, two or three semi-meandering songs sound as if they could have been distilled into one or two stronger ones.
Blige should take some inspiration from her heroine Simone to realize she doesn't need so many collaborators adding little more than their names to her liner notes. And you have to wonder if Blige can't think of anything else to sing about, like being a mom for example, or the world outside her relations? Those are just suggestions, however, for a clearly ambitious singer with a long career still ahead, and they don't in the end take away from the many strong tracks here. In particular, "Gonna Breakthrough" (with MJ rapping) and "MVP" (with a 50 Cent cameo) seriously rock the house.
Tacked on at the end (at label head Jimmy Iovine's request, apparently) is a live take of Mary performing "One" with U2. It is a stunning rendition, elevating both singer and song, which gives an idea of how much farther Blige could go if she really had strong songwriting material.
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