Queen Mary

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

There's a long, strong history in R. and B. of female singers taking lovers to task. Pop music, of course, is full of songs about romance gone wrong, but when R.-and-B. divas dress men down, they're often a bit more real. Blues great Bessie Smith, in Hard Time Blues, sang about leaving a man with "dirty ways"; today Erykah Badu castigates her cell phone-hogging lover on her song Tyrone; TLC ridicules deadbeat men on No Scrubs, and the vocal group Destiny's Child cries out for men who can pay their girlfriends' Bills, Bills, Bills. Hip-hop soul singer Mary J. Blige, on her enjoyable new CD, Mary (MCA), continues the tradition. Blige sees through men and their cheatin' ways; she reads them, thumbing through them like magazines in a dentist's office, until their true feelings flutter out like subscription cards.

But Blige is also hard on herself. On Deep Inside, which cleverly incorporates part of Elton John's Bennie and the Jets, she takes a look at her own emotional baggage. On Not Lookin', Blige derides "player sh__" but is confident enough to bring in male singer (and ex-boyfriend) K-Ci Hailey for a sort of vocal debate. Mary is somewhat inconsistent in song quality, but Blige's soul-singed vocals save the weaker material. There are also several high points: on Don't Waste Your Time, Aretha Franklin and Blige stage a soulful summit meeting on trifling men, and on All That I Can Say, Lauryn Hill, the song's producer and writer, serves up a gorgeous melody. Blige and her female collaborators want to reach out to men, but, if need be, these sisters can do it for themselves.

--By Christopher John Farley