Send "Macy Gray " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Macy Gray was already 32 years old when her debut album arrived in 1999. If she sounded, even then, like a whiskey-soaked Billie Holiday/Aretha Franklin, well, she was no ingénue. On How Life Is had the slink of neo-soul, the consciousness of hip-hop, and a bunch of strong songs that Gray herself co-wrote in her years singing jazz and studying screenwriting.Since her debut, however, Gray’s work has been spotty and strange, saleable and then disappointing, too eager to please and also not pleasing enough. Passed around to a variety of producers, Gray’s glorious and idiosyncratic voice has been a star performer. But like an R&B Denzel Washington, Gray has too rarely found vehicles worthy of her star turn. Now, after a hiatus of three years, Gray reappears with The Sellout, a recording titled in—we are supposed to assume—irony. This is clearly an attempt to return to form, to reinvest in the soul grooves that launched a career and that made Gray’s voice so instantly recognizable. Some tunes here do just that. The title track and album opener is a slow soul groove built around a hand-clap feeling and featuring a sing-song blues melody. The arrangement gives Gray plenty of room to place the notes in and around the beat, and the textures—synth-strings, echoes around the vocals, hip-hop thumps, jangly-chorused guitar, even a whispered hint of Auto-tuning that avoids cliché—are smartly employed. That is to say everything is set up to feature the unforgettable voice. Score one for Gray....full text |
| Independent |
| While The Sellout represents an improvement on Macy Gray's last couple of albums, it still suffers much of the same frustrating patchiness, that distinctively emotive voice squandered on material that simply doesn't deserve it, like the nondescript ballad "Still Hurts" and the grim duet with Bobby Brown, "Real Love". But for the first few tracks, it has an engaging charm that's irresistible: featuring Matt, Duff and Slash, "Kissed It" is a lumbering boogie stomp with a saucy subtext ("I was gonna leave you, then you kissed it"), while the single "Lately" cruises along on a smooth R&B glide, Gray's layered voices filtered through various different effects. Best of all may be "Beauty in the World", where strummed acoustic guitar and handclaps collude infectiously behind the catchy invocation "There is beauty in the world/ Shake your booty, boys and girls"....full text |
| Guardian |
| Much loved for her soulful squeak and kooky ways, Macy Gray has always struggled to match the success of her world smash "I Try". Five albums in, she says she has "finally made the album I was capable of", calling it "a love letter to my fans". Judging by this cliched break-up album overflowing with nasty drum machines, vocoders and saccharine backing vocals she obviously doesn't like them very much. "That Man" is a fun doo-wop number and "Help Me" hints at some honest emotion, but these are exceptions in a litany of weak melodies and half-hearted lyrics....full text |
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