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All we ever want Macy to do is Try
MACY GRAY
Koko
by Richard Osley
ASK anyone about Macy Gray and they will conjure up a duckish warble and recite the words to I Try (And walk away but I stumble) back at you. It’s a shame. She is worth more than being judged on one song. Yet wherever she goes in the world that’s all they want to hear. I Try.
At Koko last Tuesday she only sang about a third of it and let the crowd do the rest. If I was Macy Gray I would be sick of the song. I’m not Macy Gray, I don’t have to sing it every night and I am sick of the song. Tunes like Still and Why Didn’t You Call Me have been forgotten in its wake. If Macy had stuck to the simple formula of those earthy, sometimes horn-led gems then she wouldn’t be lost in the musical marsh of poppy soul and absurd psychedelia that she now staggers about in.
Her strength is her unique, rasping voice which, when it isn’t lost in the mix, it is still capable of knocking you out.
It’s funny, though. Macy Gray is supposed to be kooky and bounce around as if she doesn’t care what people think. But right now, maybe because her second and third records didn’t sell too well, she comes across as somebody trying hard to please. She has ditched her Afro and is borrowing help from Justin Timberlake, which doesn’t fit in with the initial attraction of her early soul music. If she kept it simple, she might not always have to return to I Try for her show’s camera phone moment.
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