Review: Mary J. Blige - 'Stronger with Each Tear'

It was on her 2001 album, No More Drama, that R&B superstar Mary J. Blige promised that she was done with the negative lifestyle that she had lived and frequently sung about in her music. Up until now, she hasn't completely kept that promise, but on her ninth studio album, Stronger with Each Tear (released Dec. 22, 2009 in the U.S. by Geffen Records), Mary seems to have finally reached the point where she's utterly happy and completely comfortable with herself and her life. Despite the dramatic title, Stronger with Each Tear is practically a love-fest from beginning to end.

The closest that Mary comes to bringing the drama on Stronger with Each Tear is on the album's ninth track, "We Got Hood Love," a duet with superstar-in-the making Trey Songz. On the track, Mary and Trey sing about the kind of love that isn't particularly shiny and bright, but is still true nonetheless: "We got 'hood love, I be cussin' I be screamin' like it's over/then I'm longin' then I'm fiendin' just to hold ya/'cause that's how we do, you know that 'hood love is the good love, it's me and you," Mary sings. Trey, who's always talented but inconsistent, really knocks it out of the park with his vocals on this one and manages to hold his own alongside the always spectacular Mary J.

Another song about relationship turbulence is "Kitchen," on which Mary schools another woman who she thinks is trying to snatch her man away: "Now I can have anybody baby, I ain't stressin'/But what I done for him, I consider him an investment/Tryin'a take my man is like tryin'a take my money/And tryin'a take my money, well, just ain't happnin." Besides these two songs though, most of the tracks on Stronger are filled with the kind of shiny, bright and upbeat love songs that the confused and hurt Mary of the 1990s probably never dreamt that she'd be singing today.

Among the album's best material is the first single, "The One," featuring Canadian rapper Drake. On the dance song, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul gets her boast on: "Way I walk, way I talk, my swagger/Boy, you know every boss wanna have her/I ain't sayin' I'm the best, but I'm the best." Drake also elevates things with a few clever bars. The Darkchild-produced song, which features Mary using Auto-Tune, comes at the tail end of that trend, but she manages to masterfully use the pitch correction software the way it was supposed to be used: as a tool to enhance the vocals by adding a new dimension to them, as opposed to T-Pain and Kanye West, who used Auto-Tune in lazy and non-creative ways to hide their flaws as vocalists.

If there's one song on the album that encapsulates the growth Mary has achieved over the years, it's the last track, "Color." The song (which was almost left off the album), is also known as "I Can See In Color," and was originally recorded for the soundtrack to the movie Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire. The incredibly moving song, which is about making it through life's storms and then seeing beauty in a world where before there was only ugliness, is easily the best song on the album and one of the finest tracks of Mary's career.