Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Apr 27, 2017Strength of a Woman, the new album from Mary J. Blige, moves like a forest fire: ruthless, wide-ranging, blunt. The heat emanating off it is palpable.
-
Apr 27, 2017A few duds like the repetitive "Glow Up" and the sappy duet with Prince Charlez "Smile" aside, Strength Of A Woman is Blige's finest offering in over a decade.
-
May 1, 2017Strength of a Woman finds its power in going back to basics. As a whole experience, it luxuriates within the magisterial hip-hop-soul queendom she formulated in the ’90s and the attendant themes that trace back to wronged-woman blues.
-
Apr 27, 2017The LP is missing a killer cut or two; the empowering title track is the closest thing to a classic MJB anthem. ... Blige fares better with the spiritual uplift that bookends Strength: the Kanye West-assisted “Love Yourself” and the straight-up gospel “Hello Father,” which riffs on Stevie Wonder’s “Jesus Children of America.”
-
May 9, 2017Pain is practically synonymous with art, so it’s not surprising Blige has delivered another round of raw, gritty and emotionally transparent songwriting.
-
May 9, 2017A few songs do depart from expressing pain and the documentation of recovery. Brightest of all is "Find the Love," pure early-'80s boogie throwback. Just beneath that is the title track, a theatrical empowerment anthem that would likely close just about any other album. Instead, extra punctuation is provided by "Hello Father," another gem.
-
Apr 28, 2017Running at 16 full-length tracks, Strength of A Woman can seem overindulgent. Songs that are enjoyable in isolation, or as a smaller subset, become either repetitive or forgettable in the context of the whole.
-
May 4, 2017After the refreshing change furnished by 2014’s The London Sessions, things are pretty much back to normal for Mary J Blige on Strength Of A Woman, which finds the Queen Of R&B Reproach once again embattled by amorous treachery.
-
May 1, 2017It’s not groundbreaking, but Blige’s vocals alone are a reminder of why she remains so important to the genre.
-
Apr 27, 2017If only she had skipped the sub-Beyoncé jam, the Get Lucky-style one and the Rihanna-ish trap track featuring meme makers DJ Khaled, Migos and Missy Elliott. Beyond those fairly obvious pop bids, the empowerment ballads are pleasingly understated.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 19 out of 23
-
Mixed: 2 out of 23
-
Negative: 2 out of 23
-
Apr 30, 2017
-
Aug 9, 2017