Album: Macy Gray

The Trouble With Being Myself from 2003 represented something of a return to form for Macy Gray, albeit one too slight to extend her contract at Columbia. But this album for will.i.am's Geffen offshoot doesn't really address the issues threatening her career, notably the worn-out appeal of that croak of a voice, which has developed a whiney edge. Secondly, the material and arrangements provided by her studio team are simply dull. It's also risky using James Brown samples, which set up expectations that the shameless gangsta-moll posturing of "Ghetto Love" just can't fulfill. Featuring Gray admiring her man's guns, it's one of several songs here which wring the final drops out of her faux-psychotic homicidal character. A gimmick only mildly amusing on her debut, it just seems plain stupid when, in a queasy mix of gangsta attitude and neo-con crusaderism, she winds up, three albums later, suggesting that guns, rather than words, help make the world a better place: "Ain't what you say, it's what you do with your guns". Now that really is mad.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Okay', 'AEIOU'

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