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MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)

Busta Rhymes and Ludacris get her back to where she once belonged for the duration of their openers. After that, it's an expensive, honorable, credible sampler of the hottest current R&B brands.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

Growing Pains sprints out of the gate with a potent double-shot of empowerment anthems.

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NOW Magazine

The various producers behind this all pull their weight, but as usual the star is Blige’s husky voice and that charming mix of vulnerability and over-the-top diva confidence.

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The Guardian

Her awareness of the bad times runs like a thread through every note she sings, and the album's finest moment comes when she confronts them head on.

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Dot Music

Blige's eighth studio album [is a contender] for being the best of her career.

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All Music Guide

She has been able to do what few others before her have: cater to her crossover audience without losing the essence of what she really is and where she came from, and so all of Growing Pains, from its upbeat beginning to its reflective, personal ending (though the last track, 'Come to Me [Peace]' is the only real miss on the entire album), doesn't seem forced or calculated.

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PopMatters

Pleasing everyone requires quite the balancing act, but Growing Pains confirms that while it’s not yet perfected, it’s doable.

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Entertainment Weekly

So in the end, it's just Mary: a superstar, clearly, but also a woman still in the process of finding herself. Even if that means she's imperfect (and, yes, a little preachy), at least it feels real.

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Rolling Stone

Growing Pains is an edgier record than "The Breakthrough," but Blige has definitely lost or just outgrown the brassy urgency of her twenties.

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Hartford Courant

She saves the best for last, though, layering piano, subtle guitar and synthesizers over a steady four-beat rhythm and singing a lilting melody with strong lyrics taking stock of life and love.

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Village Voice

Growing Pains could use more of this insouciance, or another song that harnessed all her gifts as well as Breakthrough's "Be Without You" did. Confusing confessions with wisdom, Blige would be more fun if she'd shut up for a while and luxuriate.

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Boston Globe

After all the sermonizing and confessions, the idea that we have to learn to live without clarity may be Blige's most arresting, and galvanizing, message.

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New Musical Express

Growing Pains finds Blige on chirpier form.

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Austin Chronicle

Her eighth album since 1992 and first since 2005's Grammy-winning "The Breakthrough," the former's Growing Pains starts unsteady, but its heart beats strong and sincere.

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Slant Magazine

She keeps her most salable characteristic, her emotiveness, under duress, which provides tension but no release.

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Blender

Much of the CD feels as though it could have been made anytime in the last 15 years.

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Hot Press

Although there are numerous pointers as to what might have been, had Mary retained greater creative focus, there is precious little to savour here.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dillon H. gave it a9:
excellent album. but on track 2 she sounds constipated. other than that great grl

Fez gave it a10:
This is the best, let Alicia have a rest with her album with 4 hits, this CD has all the hits to rptate the radio in 2008.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
This album is great from start to finish. I can't take it out of the cd player. the more I listen to it the more I actually listen to the words. A lot of the songs i can relate too.

Anastasia P. gave it a10:
Absolutely Fabulous!!! I Love It!!

Vas gave it a7:
Sad... The album (at least some songs off it) is pop rnb like Ne-yo. There is even one europop song! MJB's voice clearly deserves much better then this one.

Janis S. gave it a10:
Best thing released in R&B this year!!!

Mark P. gave it a10:
MJB can do no wrong, naturally. 'Growing Pains' is good from beginning to end.

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Growing Pains

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