• Record Label: Sony
  • Release Date: Jul 15, 2003
Metascore
74

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 17
  2. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. Blender
    80
    The music makes her giddiness contagious. [#16, p.114]
  2. Macy's decision to team with [producer Dallas] Austin this time around gives her anarchic brilliance just the right creative counterbalance.
  3. Part biography, part self-analysis, part feminine primal scream, Myself is a tour through familiar Gray territory, spiked with humor and her take-no-bullshit attitude.
  4. At once more of the same and something more, a set of polished, enchantingly newish approaches to her favorite themes, from bad choices (hers and his) and rueful memories to exhilarating anticipations and beguiling fantasies.
  5. The Trouble With Being Myself is solidly produced, if too safely MOR to stand beside Gray's debut, and it doesn't exhibit anything close to The Id's sense of risk.
  6. Q Magazine
    70
    As ever, when the beats go uptempo, things go awry... but there's life in the giant-haired lady yet. [Jun 2003, p.98]
  7. To call Macy Gray's new album, The Trouble With Being Myself, delightful is to minimize its sensual intelligence and considerable emotional depth.
  8. Now, done with that id shit, she finds her voice by pleading with her man to stay or come back as the case may be.
  9. Mojo
    70
    The best of The Trouble With Being Myself finds Gray grinning. [Jun 2003, p.98]
  10. 83
    As a current-events commentator, Gray's got better beats than The New York Times and funnier lyrics than Fox News.
  11. Her third album reins it all in to a more palatable place with traditional R&B production and a healthy dose of funkiness.
  12. Gray's idiosyncrasies are sometimes buried beneath the syrupy strings (which may have been the intent), robbing the album of unpredictable highs as well as lows.
User Score
6.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 10
  3. Negative: 3 out of 10
  1. ArtemH
    Aug 7, 2003
    8
    Yuh, I must admit - Macy rulezzzz!! (como siempre). I liked the whole album, except 2 or 3 tracks. That they are not bad - just they're Yuh, I must admit - Macy rulezzzz!! (como siempre). I liked the whole album, except 2 or 3 tracks. That they are not bad - just they're not for me. The best song - She ain't right for you, great ballad with raspy Macy's voyce Full Review »