Macy Gray’s seemingly overnight success wasn’t exactly as spontaneous as it may appear. For starters, she was “discovered” by Andrew Slater, the same man who brought us Fiona Apple. And without question Gray also benefited from a massive publicity campaign that preceded the release of her album “On How Life Is.”
But no amount of money can guarantee stardom. It was Gray’s hard work and tireless touring — Saturday night’s appearance at the Aragon Ballroom was only the latest of about a half dozen stops in Chicago since the 1999 release of her sole album — that catapulted “On How Life Is” to double-platinum sales. Now that Gray has made it she doesn’t seem inclined to rest. With her charming croak of a voice and a 13-piece band, Gray once again entranced the city with her mix of rock, pop, soul and R&B.
She’s a star, all right: All the costume changes proved it. And it was Gray’s charisma that allowed her to surmount the Aragon’s infamously terrible sound, at least some of the time. Other times Gray may as well have been singing in the shower. However, whenever the acoustics let her down, there was always the audience to fill in the gaps. Songs such as “Sex-O-Matic,” “I’ve Committed Murder,” “The Letter,” and “I Can’t Wait To Meetchu” were the rave-ups that any good revue should offer, while a version of “Que Sera Sera” was a tip of the proverbial hat to soul pioneer Sylvester (Sly Stone) Stewart.
Sly and the Family Stone is one of dozens of acts Gray recalls but never quite matches, and that’s part of the problem: Sometimes stardom just isn’t enough. There’s a certain synthetic quality to Gray’s music; it’s plastic soul and fake funk that hits all the right notes but somehow skips the passion. With such a capable band on hand (which included, as per the new norm, a deejay along with the usual drums, horns, keys, guitars and backing singers), Gray should have been able to get beyond the sterile, limiting perfection of her album and into true bliss territory.
Instead, she never really took off. At the end of the night Gray’s hit “I Try” predictably tore the house down, but there was something almost robotic about the song. It sounded like TLC’s slick, overplayed “Waterfalls” instead of the truly stirring anthem it could have been.
This is not to imply that Gray isn’t talented. She most certainly is. More so, it’s great to see an artist of some substance squeeze her way onto charts packed with anything but. Still, it would be even better if Gray stopped coasting on her newfound success and starting taking some risks.
She’s arrived, that much is certainly clear. The question is, where is she going next? It’s the prospect of future conquests that makes Gray so tantalizing, not her current status as just another star with her foot in the door.
