Moodring is the third studio album by American singer Mya, released on July 22, 2003, by A&M and Interscope Records.
Production on Moodring was handled by a bevy of producers and songwriters. Mya enlisted the assistance of producers Ron Fair, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Rockwilder, Damon Elliott, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and a handful of others. With this album, Mya wrote "99.9%" of her own lyrics and co-produced many of the album's tracks.
The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, with AllMusic praising Mya for coming up with her best and most varied set of songs yet. Moodring debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 113,000 copies, marking Mya's highest debut and first-week sales yet. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and has sold 589,000 copies in the United States. Moodring spawned two singles, "My Love Is Like...Wo" and "Fallen", with the former reaching the top 40 in several countries. To further promote the album, Mya embarked on the Moodring Tour. In August 2005, after five years with Interscope Records, Mya decided to part ways with the label and her management.
In July 2023, to commemorate the album's twentieth anniversary, Universal Music Group released a digital deluxe 20th anniversary edition featuring nine songs and remixes previously unavailable on DSPs.
Background Since the singer's 2000 album Fear of Flying, she earned a Grammy for her contribution to "Lady Marmalade" from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack and appeared in the Oscar-winning film Chicago. In addition, Mya also served as a pitch woman for Coca-Cola. Speaking about the gap between albums, and her transition from one Interscope-distributed imprint University Music to A&M Records, Mya told Billboard magazine, "this has been the biggest gap between projects. Not knowing when my album would come, working with someone like A&M Records president Ron Fair and the transition from moving from an independent label to Interscope sort of left us in limbo."
Due July 22, 2003, Moodring was her A&M debut. Mya's two prior sets, Fear of Flying and her self-titled debut, were released via then-Interscope-distributed imprint University Music. Consequently, for Mya, who executive-produced Moodring with Fair, fighting for her single was only one example of the creative control she had on the album. "I took control," Mya commented. "It wasn’t about being a stubborn artist. It was just something that I started on my own by calling up people and gathering musicians together."
In fact, the singer fronted funding for the album at the beginning of the studio process, "to create a playground for Mya," she admits. "There were no expectations, because people didn’t even know I was working on an album." In agreements with the singer, Fair shared with Billboard, "Over the last couple of years, she has really matured. A lot of this growth was on a human level, and she applies it to her work. Once I realized that her ideas were coming from a real place of talent and vision, [she] really began to drive the bus."
Development Although Fear of Flying garnered critical and commercial success, Mya felt unfulfilled and unsatisfied musically and had developed a complex with her last album because it felt more like a concession than her own body of work to her. While speaking with Trace, Mya admitted Fear of Flying was a political war at Interscope Records between her former manager Haqq Islam and CEO Steve Stoute competing with each other. She expressed she was "tired of songs that didn't reveal her vocal capabilities." While acknowledging, that her radio singles were "cool", "nice" and "happy" but didn't really display any of her vocal talent. Mya also bluntly dismissed Fear of Flying as a whole, commenting, "I wouldn't even have bought my last album off of what I presented! In order to buy my last album, I would want more from Mya!"
Frustrated with label politics, she sought to take full control of her next studio effort. Mya named her next project Moodring because she felt there were many facets to this album‚ "ever changing moods, and ever changing colors". With Moodring, Mya's objective was to record an album that she could firmly stand by, and be proud of. Pushed by her newfound freedom, she was instrumental in all creative aspects on the album and credited as a co-writer, co-producer along with Ron Fair as well as served as executive producer. Of her contributions on Moodring, Harrison commented, "I found all my songs this time, with the exception of one or two. I didn't have a puppet master looking over my shoulder, telling me what to, and not do." Harrison further explained, "This time if I didn't write the song, then I produced it. With every song I was hands-on -- the structure of the track, bringing in musicians, and wanting it to sound the way I wanted it to sound."
Convinced that Moodring was her best work to date, she acknowledged she "fronted her own money for studio time, so she could do her own thing. This was the first time in her entire career that she could say that she could breathe." While noting, she took her time with Moodring because she wanted the music to be a representative of Mya.
Recording
In the beginning stages of her third studio album, Mya booked a lot of her own studio time and invested in equipment on her own. While on the road touring, she would record ideas on her tour bus or in her hotel room, singing to tracks from producers that she'd worked with before and people that she would just run into. Commenting on the process, she elaborated: "I began to write and book studio time. That's how I came up with a lot of lyrical and melodic ideas. However, they weren't fully produced." Impressed with the tracks Mya had worked on while on the road, A&M president Ron Fair offered to serve as the album's executive producer. "He'd bring in a lot of musicians or orchestras or bring a hip-hop track to another level", she said of his contributions. Mya reportedly recorded 60 songs for the album; as a result, only the 16 songs were used. Mya had hoped to work with Shaggy and Prodigy from Mobb Deep, however collaborations failed to materialize.
Tentatively titled Smoke & Mirrors, Moodring was initially characterized as a combination of G-funk, reggae and a little bit of pop rock. Prior to entering a recording studio, Mya had 20 songs already written, produced and mastered before she decided to start recording new material for the album. Admittedly, Mya hoped that the album would show her maturity as an artist. "I've grown up and gone through some things, so I'm expressing what I feel", she noted. Unlike her second album Fear of Flying (2000), which addressed somewhat superficial relationship issues, the singer envisioned her new material to be more real and personal, prompting her to pen her own lyrics for this album, according to Damon Elliott, who produced six songs on the disc. Elliott said Mya's lyrical development was not a shock tactic or an effort to keep up with her racy peers – it is more a sign of her own maturation and her interest in being honest and open. Concluding, "Mya can stand on her own", Elliott said. "Her album is gonna be off the chain. It's gonna be off the hook, man."
Music and composition Previewed by Trace magazine, journalist Omar Dubois observed, "thematically Moodring was more consistently optimistic than Fear of Flying, which he declared was engulfed in adolescent cynicism. Comprising sixteen tracks, Moodring was viewed as the singer's most personal album and a sonic indicator of how she was living, loving and creating in 2003 with songs that ranges from emotional to erotic. An eclectic album, Moodring encompasses a selection of genres from edgy hip hop flavors to smoothed out soul to banging techno to understated pop and sultry reggae. Its production incorporates a grab bag of great beats, well-orchestrated harmonies, throw-away gook, and suggestively seductive vocal hooks. Constructed as a concept record, each track on Moodring represents a mood in which the singer changes up her tone, her message, and her image from song to song. Lyrically open, Moodring explores a broad range of topics, from bad relationships, to the other woman, to knockin' boots.
Moodring opens with the Missy Elliott-produced "My Love Is Like...Wo", a "sexy, no holds-barred" song about a woman in control sexually and emotionally. It is followed by "Fallen", the titillating mid-tempo jeep-banger which cleverly interpolates the Pharcyde's "Runnin'." Serving as the album's third track "Why You Gotta Look So Good?" tells the story of the singer struggling to leave a bad relationship. Built on strong and soulful deep vibratos, the singer utters admonition against a bad-news lover she cannot leave. G-Unit member Lloyd Banks guest stars on the track, rapping from a male perspective about the same woeful situation. Next up, the hypnotic, drum and keyboard-driven, Timbaland-laced "Step". The album's fifth track, "Sophisticated Lady", previously known as "Cold Blooded", is a funk-baptized, palpitating bedding. On this record, Trace magazine described Mya as a spunky, seductive, femme-fatale. An ode to Prince and Rick James, Mya explained the concept behind the song, commenting, "I love that pretty s*$%, that pimp s*$%" "That's the s*$% that turns me on when I go to see a stage show. I love Rick like crazy, but Prince is the ultimate of that crazy, feminine, pretty man s*$%! I love it, it's drama! But it's still masculine, because it turns women on! And now, I just flipped it as a female."
The sultry, invitingly delivered "No Sleep Tonight" plays like an X-rated Boyz II Men song, with a sexy old school R&B beat over slinky, sensual vocals and served as the album's sixth track. Ditto for the hot-flash inducing seventh track "Anatomy 1 on 1," with its slow, deliberate that's beat perfect for nights alone with that special someone. Ninth track, the pop soulish Marvin Gaye meets Neneh Cherry choon "Things Come & Go", featured dancehall rapper Sean Paul. It is followed by the album's tenth track, the "heartfelt" ballad "You." Complimented with Lamont Dozier's strings and in reminiscent of a 70s soul vibe, "After the Rain" serves as the album's eleventh track. A Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis production, the pregnancy-scare narrative "Late" serves as the album's twelfth track. A garage-driven number, "Whatever Bitch" was primarily inspired by a gay dance called wagging, and drag queens at the KitKatClub in Berlin. While previewing the album, Trace noted "Whatever Bitch" had all the potential of being a staple on the club scene stateside, and a contender for the prime position on the European club and pop charts. Unbeknownst to the public, an artist had offered Mya and her label a million dollars for the song. Track fifteen, the soothing, acoustic guitar-laden "Take a Picture" was co-written by former collaborator Pink and initially intended for her second studio album Missundaztood (2001). As with "Whatever Bitch", Trace noted "Take a Picture" had the potential to be a "towering cross-over smash". Closing the album is a cover of Tom Petty's Free Fallin'. Arranged to Petty's distinctive chord progression-albeit played on piano, the singer's version is a brand-new entity, a confused story about a lost soul looking to Jesus Christ for direction.
Release and promotion