Written by none other than R Kelly, a man so smoothe you
could play bar billiards off of him, ‘Cry’ has everything we’ve
come not to expect from
Michael Jackson in his last few humbling years.
His best schmaltzy ballad
since, oh, who knows, ‘Human Nature’, ‘Cry’
manages the sappy but absurdly overblown feel only the unassailably massive and
Brett Anderson ever try to achieve. Hubris remains the
identifying trait – the video features a world united in its supplication to Emperor Jacko – but the tune is a corker, and these days, at
least where Michael’s concerned, you’ve got to take what you
can get.
Jason Fox