Macy Gray: The ID : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Macy Gray thinks she's crazy, but I don't think so. Her second album, The Id, is filled with references to her lack of sanity, from her exuberant theme song "Relating to a Psychopath," in which she reminds you that "your role model is in therapy" and would "rather remain a psycho" than take her meds, to the hilarious "Gimme All Your Lovin' or I Will Kill You," in which her love is requited by introducing the man she can't get to her AK-47. "It's amazing what a gun to the head can do," she concludes. "My baby loves me now as hard as he can/My methods may be suspect/But you gotta get love however you can."

Then there's that voice. There must be some insanity in anyone who sings like Daffy Duck with soul. But in the tradition of Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, there's something endearing in Gray's peculiar sound: In a world of Alicia Keys and Lauryn Hill, Gray's the least likely to succeed, but she's taken her lemon of a voice and made lemonade by bending her flat notes and creating an instrument that complements her trippy worldview. Gray's pipes aren't for everyone, but if you can't stomach them, I feel for you. You're missing some of the best soul on the planet.

The Id is not unlike Gray's brilliant 1999 debut, On How Life Is, filled with upbeat funk and mellow soul and exquisitely crafted songs about love and sex, with a little violence and a lot of humor. But she's really come into her own with psychedelic disco-soul anthems like "Sexual Revolution" and mellow midtempos like "Sweet Baby" and bluesy ballads like "Don't Come Around," sung to the guy she's breaking up with who wants to remain friends: "You wanted to leave me, baby," she tells him, "So won't you leave me alone?" The song is funny and sad and really true, all at once. Gray ain't crazy, because being crazy is about anti-social behavior, and her wish is for you to be loony alongside her. "Share your freak with the rest of us," she says on "Sexual Revolution, " 'Cause it's a beautiful thang!" Gray lives somewhere deep inside her head, but her head is screwed on tight. Please don't take your meds, baby. Your kind of crazy is good for all of us.

TOURE
(RS 878 - September 27, 2001)