Growing Pains

AlbumJan 01 / 200716 songs, 1h 5m 1s
Contemporary R&B
Noteable
B

Mary J. Blige has returned after 2005's triumphant The Breakthrough like a superstar athlete coming off a championship season: She's looking hard for some motivational adversity to stay on top. On Growing Pains, Blige finds it by reaching beyond the relative stability of her personal life and playing up the vulnerable…

Check out our album review of Artist's Growing Pains on Rolling Stone.com.

Eight albums into her career and comfortably settled into married life -- and, for the most part, herself -- Mary J. Blige continues to prove her versatility and strength, building off 2005's The Breakthrough, but not copying from it.

It’s hard to get beyond the very title of Mary J. Blige’s eighth overstuffed collection of affirmations, self-definitions, and keepin’-it-real-isms.

8 / 10

<p>(Geffen) </p>

Album Reviews: Mary J Blige - Growing Pains