Internationally it was released December 18, 2009, in Australia and Germany, December 21 in France, December 23 in Japan, and on February 2, 2010, in Korea with further international releases (in some cases re-releases) in March, April and May 2010. With this album, Blige achieved a record of nine albums to have debuted at the top of the US R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Background
Blige started working on her ninth album while she toured with Robin Thicke in 2008. In an interview with Rap-Up magazine she said:
The album represents who and what I am right now. I'm a stronger human being after all the growing pains. It's about life, love, change, strength—mostly really knowing who you are and being confident in that[3]
The album was initially titled Stronger, after the song "Stronger", which Blige recorded and released as the lead single from the soundtrack Music Inspired by More than a Game from the LeBron James' documentary More than a Game.[4] However Rap-Up later revealed that the album had been re-titled Stronger with Each Tear.[1]
The album has production and writing credits from Ryan Leslie, Darkchild and Johntá Austin. Also included are several guests like the Canadian rapper Drake who appears on the first single "The One", rapper T.I. who appears on "Good Love" which was initially planned as the second single[5] and Trey Songz himself revealed that he had recorded a duet called "Hood Love" with Blige for the album.[6] The song was previously recorded by Austin and Blige for Austin's first solo album that was never released. The song has since been reworked and re-titled "We Got Hood Love". Following the album's release in the US, the song charted at 82 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart due to strong digital downloads.[7] The album track "I Feel Good" entered the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at number 83 on the issue dated February 6, 2010, and on the issue dated March 6, 2010, it reached a peak of number 68.[8] whilst "Good Love" featuring T.I. entered the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at number 59[8] and was on the charts for around eleven weeks with a peak of 58.[9]
Australian media outlets revealed that the international version of the album would be released with an altered track listing. The new version of the album had a duet version of the song "Each Tear" with the Australian artist Vanessa Amorosi.[10] There are also four other versions of the track performed by the Italian singer Tiziano Ferro and the UK singer Jay Sean, Rea Garvey and K'naan.[11] According to HMV, it would also include cover versions of the Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven", "Whole Lotta Love" and the song "Stronger" from the soundtrack More than a Game.[12][13] The international version of the album removed the songs "Said and Done", "We Got Hood Love" and "Kitchen" from the tracklist, and replaced them with "Whole Lotta Love", "I Can't Wait", "City on Fire", "Stronger", "Stairway to Heaven" and a remix of "I Am" by Dave Audé.
Release and promotion
The album was originally scheduled for US release on November 24, 2009[14] but this was pushed back to December 15, 2009[15] which would have put Blige's album in a chart battle with Alicia Keys' album The Element of Freedom. The album was pushed back once more to December 21, 2009.
On April 13, 2010, Blige appeared on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show where she performed "Each Tear" and her version of the "Stairway to Heaven", which appears on the Stronger with Each Tear international edition and on iTunes as a digital single.
Singles
"The One", featuring Drake was released as the album's first single in the US and Australia on July 21, 2009.[19] Featuring Drake, the song was co-written by Ester Dean and produced by Rodney Jerkins. It peaked at number sixty-three on the US Billboard Hot 100.
"I Am" which was written by Blige, Johntá Austin and Ester Dean with music produced by Stargate, was released as the first international single (second in the US) in December 2009.[20] It debuted on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart at number forty-six prior to its full release and peaked at number four upon release. It debuted on Japan's Oricon chart at number 92 and peaked at number 11 on that chart,[21] while also debuting on the Hot 100 at sixty-seven and peaking at number fifty-five. It was also the international lead single from the album.
"Each Tear" was released as the second international single from the album in February 2010. There are different versions of the song. For Australia, it features the singer-songwriter Vanessa Amorosi; for Italy, Tiziano Ferro; for the UK, Jay Sean; for Germany, Rea Garvey and for Canada, K'naan. Marcus Raboy filmed a video which was then edited to show each of the guests in versions for their respective markets. It peaked at number one in Italy and number 183 in the UK, while failing to chart elsewhere. The single was not released in the United States.
"We Got Hood Love" featuring Trey Songz was released as the third US single from the album on March 30, 2010.[22] The song debuted at number eighty-two on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart following the album's release due to strong digital downloads and radio airplay.[8] A video was filmed with Mary J. Blige and football player George Wilson in Miami,[23] while Trey Songz filmed his scenes in a New York City apartment.[24] Chris Robinson directed the video for the single[25] with a planned May 10, 2010 premiere through Vevo,[26] though it actually appeared on Rap-Up on May 6, 2010.[27]
Other songs
"Stairway to Heaven" was released on April 13, 2010, as an iTunes only release.[28] Available as a download only and with no video the Led Zeppelin cover features Travis Barker, Randy Jackson, Steve Vai and Orianthi. Another Zeppelin cover, "Whole Lotta Love", is the single's B-side. The songs only appear on the international version of the album.[29] It was released again on April 22, 2010, to raise money for American Idol's Idol Gives Back.
Stronger with Each Tear received generally favorable reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 75 based on twelve reviews.[41] Andy Kellman from AllMusic called "Stronger with Each Tear a "very good Blige album, if not quite a classic. One of her briefest sets, it is tremendously (almost studiously) balanced between all the ground she has covered so well before. That's no criticism, though, since most of the songs are easily memorable and display so much range."[31]Boston Globe critic Sarah Rodman found that the album was a "reminder that Blige gets stronger with each album", further noting: "The queen of hip-hop soul splits her loyalty between three masters with the agility of a gymnast, but she manages to hold a mood with seamless transitions between each."[42] Similarly, Billboard wrote: "Like fine wine and Brett Favre, some things just get better with time [...] Blige has never been in better voice-or more adventurous."[43]
Margaret Wapplerf from The Los Angeles Times felt that Stronger with Each Tear finds Blige "as in touch with that resilient truth as ever, her personal discoveries bound in slick but never alienating packaging."[36]USA Today editor Steve Jones remarked that the album "finds the now-mature Blige happy, confident and ready to have some fun." While he felt that the "upbeat songs don't lend themselves to the emotional torrents that used to flow from her regularly," a "stellar list of producers and songwriters [...] give her plenty of radio-friendly beats in keeping with the album's overall positive vibe."[40]BBC Music critic Daryl Easlea called it a "body of work that is one of the strongest in R&B. Although Stronger with Each Tear may not be one of her greatest works, it ensures that Blige remains as relevant as any of her more recent contemporaries."[44]
In a mixed review, Jon Pareles from The New York Times wrote that Blige's "chosen producers are masters of what might be called algorithm-and-blues: crisply digitized grids of beats and hooks [...] The arrangements are often supremely clever, but the songs can also be busy and bloodless, and they’re built for adequate voices, not commanding ones. Often they tend to treat vocals as one more neatly placed sound effect."[45] Mikael Wood from Spin magazine wrote: "Blige has spent the past decade effecting a slow transformation from R&B's queen of pain to the closest thing the genre counts to Oprah Winfrey [...] It's hard to believe this is the same woman who once felt the need to announce she was done with drama. Yet despite the conviction that those track names suggest—and despite solid writing and production contributions from A-listers [...] it feels less vital than 2005's terrific The Breakthrough or 2007's Growing Pains [...] The result is minor Mary—strong by many standards, a bit tepid by hers."[38] In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau offered the description, "plainspoken, low-drama, midtempo love vows, with attempted glamour relegated to the cover shoot", while naming "Tonight" and "I Am" as the record's highlights.[33]
The album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart with first-week sales of 332,000 copies. It also went to number one on the R&B chart.[47][48] Blige is the ninth woman in SoundScan's 18-year history to see at least three albums all debut with an opening sales week of 300,000 or more.[49]Stronger with Each Tear had sold 726,100 copies in the United States by April 2010,[50] and was certified Gold by the RIAA on January 6, 2011.
In the UK, it debuted at number 33 on the main albums chart in its first week[51] but dropped out of the top forty on its second week.[52] On the UK R&B Chart it debuted at number four[53] and fell nine places to number 13 in its second week.[54]
In the US, "Each Tear" is a solo song, but on international versions feature Jay Sean except for in Italy where it features Tiziano Ferro; Vanessa Amorosi for Australia; Rea Garvey for Germany; and K'naan for Canada.
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