Mary J. Blige

Sure, Mary J. has a wonderfully powerful voice that could kill a yak at 20 paces, but she’s also saddled by a career’s worth of nonsensical and overly melismatic r&b lite tunes; those are better left buried in the mid-’90s, barring the occasional Michael Ian Black quip on a VH1 special. Guess they can’t all be “No More Drama,” a great song–and the award-winning video’s closing images of her shrieking at a wall of TV news broadcasts from Afghanistan may have been mainstream pop’s most haunting response to 9/11. With Jazmine Sullivan, Miguel, and El DeBarge.

Mon., Oct. 11, 7:30 p.m.; Tue., Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m., 2010