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Growing Pains | 
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| Artist: Mary J. Blige
Label: Geffen Records
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
Buy Used: $2.44
You Save: $11.54 (83%)
New (63) Used (37) Collectible (1) from $2.44
Rating:  146 reviews
Sales Rank: 1324
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 001031302
UPC: 602517520301
EAN: 0602517520301
ASIN: B000X3VN5U
Release Date: December 18, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Work That | | • | Grown Woman featuring Ludacris | | • | Just Fine | | • | Feel Like a Woman | | • | Stay Down | | • | Hurt Again | | • | Shakedown featuring Usher | | • | Till the Morning | | • | Roses | | • | Fade Away | | • | What Love Is | | • | Work in Progress (Growing Pains) | | • | Talk To Me | | • | If You Love Me? | | • | Smoke | | • | Come To Me (Peace) |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
"I'm talkin' 'bout things I know," Mary J. Blige wails on "Work That," the second single and opening track of Growing Pains. The album squeaked into 2007 too late to make best-of lists but otherwise would have stormed its way up several, for sure. She needn't have hit us with such a pronouncement: In 16 songs that ring as remarkably, unflinchingly true as those on 2005's landmark The Breakthrough, the queen of hip-hop soul keeps "keeping it real" a specialty. There's no sense in trying to assign credit for the skin-tight grooves and funked-up retro vibe here; with nine producers padding Blige's emotion-rich voice and the lyrics she so obviously lives by, what we're left with is a melange of sounds. But it's a measure of an artist who has mastered her own identity and left nothing to chance that this, her eighth studio album, comes off so free of wild cards and loose edges. "You ask what love feels like," she sings on "What Love Is," one of the disc's less fierce tracks. "It feels like joy, and it feels like pain, and it feels like sunshine, and it feels like rain," she continues, answering the question. The album feels the same way, a passel of complex feelings all wrapped up in love. No one knows struggle, heartache, and triumph over mediocrity like Blige. --Tammy La Gorce
Amazon.com
Geffen Records superstar and hit-making songwriter Mary J. Blige, is set to follow-up the most successful album of her career, the triple platinum The Breakthrough, with her eighth (8th) studio CD Growing Pains. Growing Pains includes the single "Just Fine" which has become an instant favorite on radio and on MTV, BET and VH-1. The second single from Growing Pains, "Work That," is currently featured in an Apple I-Pod commercial. After selling over 40 million CDs and garnering six Grammy Awards during her phenomenal 15-year career, Mary is confident that her fans will not be disappointed with Growing Pains. "They're going to get a sense of what my state of mind is and how I view the world," she says. "And hopefully, most of all, they're going to hear just the sincere honesty and love that I have for them." She adds, "Growing Pains represents accepting that there's pain that goes along with growing and change. No pain, no gain." Growing Pains, with Mary co-writing most of the songs on the album, features guest appearances by Ludacris and Usher and production by The Neptunes, Jazze Pha, Johnta Austin, Neyo, Stargate, Bryan-Michael Cox, Dre and Vidal, Tricky, Dream, and Sean Garrett. Mary makes her message loud, clear and seriously funky on the first release "Just Fine" produced by Jazze Pha and Tricky and co-written by Mary and Dream. A celebration of life, "Just Fine" gives you Mary fierce, and as the video shows, glamorous. The song's vibe? "Sometimes it feels like you're having this miserable time, like all 365 days of the year are tough. But then, you get one of those days; maybe when your hair is great, or you're not stuck in traffic; where it's a `just fine' day. At some point," Mary laughs, "You've got have one or two of those." The party and positivity keeps on keeping on with the rump shaking second single "Work That." Mary comments, "When I meet a woman who doesn't know what to do about her weight or her hair I always say - `whatever it is that you have, make that work for you, Work what you got.'" After releasing her bestselling anthology Reflections last year, Growing Pains is Mary's first CD of new material since The Breakthrough debuted at #1 in 2005, selling over 700,000 copies its first week -- the best opening week for a solo R&B female artist in SoundScan history. The album's first single, "Be Without You," also made chart history by holding down the #1 spot on the Billboard R&B charts for a record breaking 16 straight weeks; making it the longest-running No. 1 song on the R&B chart in over 40 years. Mary led all artists with eight 2007 Grammy nominations for the landmark album, and she took home honors for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Song (both for "Be Without You"), and Best R&B Album. After earning three Grammy Awards, she continued her award show domination by winning nine Billboard Music Awards, two American Music Awards, two BET Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, and a Soul Train Award. The Breakthrough lived up to its name selling over seven million copies worldwide. More from Mary J. Blige 
Reflections—A Retrospective | 
The Breakthrough | 
My Life | 
What's the 411? | 
No More Drama | 
Share My World | 
Mary | 
Love & Life | 
The Tour |
Album Description
UK pressing of the R&B diva's 2007 album features three bonus tracks: 'If You Love Me' (Edit), 'Hello It's Me' and 'Mirror'. Growing Pains is Mary J. Blige's eighth studio album. After a tumultuous period in the '90s which saw the R&B and Soul diva battle demons both privately and professionally, this album documents her final steps to personal happiness as uplifting single 'Just Fine' demonstrates. As a positive record, it highlights the emotional depth in Blige who sounds more confident and mature than ever before. It also includes a guest appearance from rapper Ludacris. 19 tracks. Polydor. 2008.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Inspiring Mary ! October 29, 2008
Gimme_Jazz (Casablanca, Morocco)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Studio album number eight from Mary J Blige is beautiful, a little bit sad, a little bit happy, immaculately played and exquisitely sung in that gorgeous voice: a warm and charming collection of songs in the styles with which Blige has become associated - blues, jazz, hip hop, soul.
Sporting a white shift with her strong features in proud profile, Mary J Blige is dressed as the high priestess of self-help for the cover of her latest CD.
Although the Queen of Hip Hop Soul has long since quit drugs, got married and found God, the motivational message she began spreading with 2005's triple-platinum-selling The Breakthrough will still be delivered in ghetto-fabulous style.
"Growing Pains" doesn't break much musical ground, but it is inspiring to hear 38-year-old Blige maturing with such energy and honesty.
The CD is also just a little bit dull.
Some of the ballads drag, but the fiery upbeat anthems designed to empower the "grown woman" will certainly inspire a few smiles and starjumps between laundry loads.
The album, which includes Mary's Top 10 single "Just Fine" features guest appearances from Ludacris and Usher, and production by The Neptunes, Johnta Austin, Ne-yo, Stargate, Bryan-Michael Cox, Dre and Vidal, Tricky, The Dream and Sean Garrett.
Her previous masterpieces that was the becoming of Mary will always come into question because Mary established herself in the Hip Hop/R&B/Soul genre as an artist who had to take the rough with the smooth.
She was an artist that fought a tough and hard winding battle, opened up to her darkest moments and fought with her demons, which made for good music.
Compelling music in fact. And music that can even be deemed 'classic'.
Now Mary has finally found a happy place, an inner pace, her comfort zone.
It's good that her self-empowered confidence is reflected in the music.
"Growing Pains" leaves the listener no uncertainty as to how she feels today.
"You know I love music," she says during the opening bars of "Just Fine". "It makes me move, it makes me wanna have fun!" It's a funky, determined track and the fact that it samples Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" gives it a hugely triumphant feel.
Plus, its upbeat message is given an inspirational twist because of the long, arduous journey that lies behind its protagonist's getting to feeling "Just Fine".
The album definitely has an updated feel complete with good ole contemporary (but mature) R&B with the oldskool sound here and there especially in superb gems like "Hurt Again" (signature Mary), "Feel Like A Woman", "Stay Down", "Work In Progress" (Growing Pains) and "If You Love Me".
Apart from those, the album pretty much hit a couple of blunt corners. Mary has nothing to prove with this album though because everything has already been proved.
Still the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul without a remarkable doubt, Mary is doing 'just fine'.
There's plenty to admire here, not least the musicianship.
But mostly there's that voice - strikingly powerful and unique, utterly flawless.
My highlights : "Work In Progress"(Growing Pains), "Grown Woman" and "Work That".
Have a very pleasant listening experience!
 Work That Just Fine October 26, 2008
Loving Circle - Interracial WMBW
Work That
Just Fine
Goosebumps and chills every time "Work That" came on the air, no matter where I was. An anthem, pep rally kind of song that immediately linked me back to the empowering feminist anthem "I am Woman (Hear me roar)". I can't recall a song as immediately so emotionally powerful as "Work That" in eons. It was as if, every time I heard the song, and looked around at the other women around me, there was a renewed sisterhood of goodwill. Somebody was talking to us, cheering us on. Wishing us well. Cheering us on. Somebody cares to share some good vibes. Not only the message, the messenger but the kindness and caring to reach out to strangers using a worldwide platform for goodwill? chills. So often, what's on the TV or the radio isn't about the audience so much as the sales. And rarely on a personal level of meaning.
For some people, there's not always, or ever been, someone around to tell you that you can make it, that you are somebody, somebody good and worthy. For some people, the negative that they hear is what they become, because that's all they principally hear. You can rise above or fall below expectations. Sometimes you can follow the lead of others, growing through the pains. "Follow me."
Back in the heydays of the 60s and 70s, there was a sisterhood of goodwill. No cat fights and such. Women were not the enemy as you progressed forward as a woman. Progress for any woman was progress for women as a group. Nowadays, competition and tearing women down are all over the air--TV, radio, news.
Women not calling each other names, the hateful "B" word. Women joining men in degrading women. It's so few and far between hearing anybody wish women well, pep you up, and cheer you on, that it's a relief and an immediate booster shot antidote from the other side of the coin every time I hear "Work That". This would be a background song when Michelle Obama hits the air as First Lady. "Follow me."
"Just Fine" got many of my days started, ended, and always was right on time.
Both songs would be just right for anyone or group working with women or girls in community development, leadership. "Work That" and "Just Fine" are cathartic, prayer like anthems that can lead the current and next generation of women to new heights of goodwill towards themselves and others.
 Higher Expectations October 24, 2008
Derek J. Carpenter (Fairfax, VA)
I give it three stars only because of the hits "Just Fine" and "Work That". I also like "Fade Away". I had higher expectations for fresher material to permeate the entire disc. The three aforementioned songs were just that...but the majority of songs are very typical modern R&B. Not very catchy. Wordy and I don't really care to find out what they're about. Avid Mary fans will likely appreciate this album more than I. I appreciate her and her contributions to the industry no matter what.
Mary is still Mary and I love her no Matter What October 5, 2008
hunibrwn
I love "If you Love Me." I love that song. That song talks about all the things a man need to do to retain the relationship.
I knew before I bought this album that it was not going to be her best but I bought it anyway because I'm a fan forever.
Just fine is a good song too if you really listen to the words. I listen to this song when I'm going to work and working out at the gym. Other than that, those are the only 2 songs I listen too. she is still the "Queen" and nobody can wear that crown the way she does!
Growing Pains September 23, 2008
Diane L. Wilson (Washington, DC USA)
Very good CD. A good variety of music, some fast to dance to, some slow to mellow out with and some duets.
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