Mary J. Blige My Life Poll

Mary's Joint.

instinct says it's between "i love you" (such an undercurrent of doom!) and "be happy" but i'm going to have to relisten

"i love you" is one of the songs that's most lift-able from the context of the album and stand-on-its-own-y. so fucking sad, too.

top 5:

Mary's Joint
I Love You
I'm Going Down
Mary Jane (All Night Long)
Be Happy

i am searching for an rtc post in another thread about the droning, profound quality of this album that seemed super-otm to me at the time i read it. does anyone remember what i'm talking about?

yes! i think rtc also mentioned the "i love you" remix? can't think of keywords to find it though

so many great remixes from this era as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHFgw37eFDU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPWpFg4gwY0

I prefer Share My World personally but My Life is such a classic, and I love how it manages to capture and sustain a particular mood throughout the whole thing.

i remembered you saying that, Brainwasher, and i listen to share my world more these days, too, but my life is her most satisfying album as a coherent whole to me. (i know i'm just stating the consensus view there.) like you say, the accumulation of a mood and the telling of a story from beginning to end and just some sort of transcendence through the sadness or something?

okay these remixes!!!

also i feel like if we polled share my world, which i will totally do next, it would be relatively easy for me to choose "seven days" which is my go-to mary j song. with my life i'm less sure.

yeah, my life is her most coherent work without question. I think it's that coherence that keeps me from loving it as much as I love Share My World - it's a very heavy, raw album and it takes a lot out of me whenever I listen to it.

i know i have to take breaks!

like, the last minute of "I'm Going Down" when she's like "what did I do wrong? please forgive me baby.... and come on come.... going down....." totally kills me every single time.

come on home*

otm. it's funny because it strays so little from rose royce's original, but something about its context on the album and mary's fragile vocals gives it all this added poignance.

just cos i wouldnt necessarily be mad at someone claiming my life was boring; it is sort of torpid in a profound way, i dunno.

― r|t|c, Tuesday, September 8, 2009 5:43 PM Bookmark

torpid, not droning, but yes, this seems otm.

haha lots of great posts in that thread:

imo only a heart of stone wouldn't have had to beat back an instant gleeful impulse for 411 - so many classic jams represented there (sprawled admittedly over 411, 411 remix, the odd 12, and time itself) but not necessarily a great listen-thru album the way it is a great cd or the seminal record of the 90s that it most probably is. and share my world is frequently excellent too, but all the same somehow never quite cumulates in that sense of magnificent abyssal totality that my life ends up leaving you with.

― r|t|c, Tuesday, September 8, 2009 8:07 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oftentimes i tend to find myself imagining chucky thompson having had this huge crush on mary while he was making this album, is that weird? the utterly silent, sadly noble kind where he'd know putting an arm around her shoulder would only ever be an awkward, inadequate kind of gesture.

― r|t|c, Tuesday, September 8, 2009 8:13 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

love "i love you" and "i'm goin down"

"Be Happy" was #1 on my year-end that year. Seems like an odd choice looking back, but I remember it was kind of lousy year for me, and it tapped into something.

Be Happy. she was supposedly bloody miserable at the time and the yearning in it is just so genuine.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i love this album so much i might as well vote for any track. voted "you gotta believe"

dont know i could pick a track from this. this record is definitely intensity personified

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

too few voters >:(

i was one of the "i love you" voters

all those pretty memories
i KNOW you can HEAR me now
for the record
i love you... i love you...

"Mary Jane" is my dream roller rink song, finally skated to it last night :)

omg congrats