★★★★★
Long time SoulTrackers know that cover albums tend to elicit a response among our reviewers that can best be described as the literary equivalent of eye-rolling. The cynicism is often well deserved because these projects often smack as the desperate move by an artist bereft of new ideas. What they do is cut an album featuring a bunch of hits from Motown, Stax or Philly International in hopes that the combination of a legendary musical canon and what is left of their fame will be enough to move...
- www.soultracks.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Finally, an album to be excited about. While most pop and R&B; is too formulaic to even mention, Gray breaks the mundane with her authentic, introspective debut On How Life Is. She more than proves her talent as a singer and songwriter. Emotion spills over every song, and you can't help but dig her music. Remember listening to Lenny Kravitz's debut and how cool it sounded? Hearing "Mr. Cabdriver" for the first time? While she doesn't sound like him, the same tenacity and energy are there...
- www.plume-noire.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Okay. As concepts go, this one is unusual to say the least. While it's common for musicians to record songs they love that are written by other musicians, I've never heard of a singer re-releasing another singer's entire record. Imagine the Decemberists recording their own version of Neil Young's On the Beach, or Rage Against the Machine giving their own spin on Led Zeppelin II. Could it work? Maybe. Is it a slam-dunk? Hardly...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-11-15
★★★★★
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's the case, Macy Gray's Talking Book- a full-length cover of one of Stevie Wonder's most famous albums of the same name- is surely the highest form of praise. In fact, rather than imitating, Macy has aimed to put her own spin on the 70s funk-pop classics. She's called it a love letter to Stevie on the 40th anniversary of this iconic Motown record...
- www.theaureview.com
2012-11-07
★★★★★
Macy Gray's lyrics tend to veer between homey love and sexual dementia. Perhaps on the recommendation of her doctor, she's taken a break from songwriting this year to deliver two covers albums. The first, Covered, found Gray reinterpreting the likes of Radiohead, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Arcade Fire. The second is altogether more ambitious: a song-for-song remake of Stevie Wonder's Talking Book on the 40th anniversary of that album, one of the singer-songwriter's greatest recordings...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2012-10-25
★★★★★
It wouldn't be harsh to state that Macy Gray's days as a commercial concern are over, at least on this side of the Atlantic. She hasn't had a Top 20 album here in nine years, and while her sales have been respectable Stateside, her last album, the somewhat ironically-titled The Sellout, which saw her take commendable risks, barely even made a dent in the UK charts upon release...
- www.musicomh.com
2012-06-25
★★★★★
Approaching a collection of covers by any artist at the best of times can cause mixed feelings of curiosity and trepidation. Cringe worthy swing albums by ex-boy banders and love albums by aging crooners have tarnished the validity of paying homage to other artists in this way. Just when you have cast the concept aside it seems that Macy Gray has broken the cover album curse. Just like singer herself, the song selections here are random and colourful...
- www.state.ie
2012-06-21
★★★★★
Macy Gray's Covered distinguishes itself from so many other (largely pointless) cover albums because her musical tastes are highly eclectic and she's not taking herself too seriously here. Most important, though, is that Gray's interpretations are fearless and subversive - and brave in their execution. It's the latter that really counts...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-04-05
★★★★★
I feel a certain amount of dread whenever I learn that an artist has dropped an album of cover songs. I think y'all know why. Cover albums usually fall into a couple of categories. There is the Great American Songbook cover albums in which a singer - usually an aging rocker or R&B singer looking to connect with a more mature audience - has a crack at the canon of Mercer, Gershwin, Porter and Ellington...
- www.soultracks.com
2012-03-06
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