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The Id

The Id is an album which gives the impression of having had a great deal of talent, time and money thrown at it in a way that by no means guaranteed a successful outcome. Recorded in the wake of the runaway success of her first record On How Life Is, Macy Gray's second features a large cast-list; seems to have been recorded all over the place; runs to nearly an hour long; and includes many thickly-layered production jobs. Yet (for me) it does mostly work very well, just about holds together, and marks an improvement over what had been an excellent debut.

I don't think I bought this from a record shop but rather from some other kind of retail space - a petrol station or a department store maybe - it would have been somewhere in Sweden in late 2001. While I was a tad nonplussed by it at first, it has grown on me, and I've played it so often that the disc is now in a sorry-looking state: I probably ought to get a new one. The opener 'Relating to a Psychopath' sets up a mood of heady derangement from the off, and includes some of the album's most memorable lyrics. 

Of the many other highlights I might pick 'Boo', 'Harry', 'Freak Like Me' and the exquisite 'Sweet Baby' as particular favourites. 'Oblivion' is an oddity with an unexpected oompah backing track, but I like that too. The bonus track 'Shed' isn't bad, but feels a somewhat superfluous addition: one course too many at the end of a long meal. Back in 2001 I found the lyrics of 'Gimme All Your Lovin' or I Will Kill You' to be cartoonishly amusing ("It's amazing what a gun to the head can do," etc.), but not any more. In most other respects, I think it's a record that holds up very well twenty-one years on.

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