Michelle Williams spent almost two years working on her third solo disc, a collection of “bitter and sad” R&B jams informed by a recent breakup. The former Destiny’s Child singer liked the direction she was going in — then Mom heard the finished album.
“She was like, ‘It’s all right. You have nothing on here for people to dance to.’ She so let me have it,” Williams says.
Something about her mother’s advice clicked. Williams scrapped the completed disc, went back into the studio and let her party girl shine through on Unexpected, a high-energy collection of club groovers, released Tuesday. She kept only two songs, Hungover and the Stargate-produced Stop This Car, from the original sessions.
The new disc is a sharp turn from Williams’ well-received pair of gospel albums, 2002′s Heart to Yours and 2004′s Do You Know — which were, in turn, departures from Destiny’s Child flirty R&B hits.
“It was like my mother gave me the permission to just make a fun album, not to be so serious,” Williams says. “Happiness is a choice, so I choose to be happy.
“I’m in love with gospel. It’s my foundation. But you’ve got to be really committed to that genre of music. I’m not ready to take that step yet.”
Unexpected casts Williams as the link between Brandy and Kylie Minogue, a blend she’s accurately dubbed “spiritually elevated and electrically sassy.” Cooing pop choruses mesh with slinky synth rhythms and processed vocals.
First single We Break the Dawn failed to make an impact at mainstream radio, but its electro-disco sound was good enough to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play and Airplay charts over the summer. Williams solidified her musical shift with a sexy video for the song and a choppy new haircut.
As she plays up her inner diva, Williams has endeared herself to gay fans, a smart move in a competitive pop world. Beyoncé-size solo success is a tall order (ask Kelly Rowland), so cornering niche markets is a smart move. She’s even popped up at several Pride events.
“I’ve had so much fun. The gay community — I love them because they tell me the truth,” Williams says. “They’ll tell you if your hair ain’t fierce, if the shoes are wrong, if the music is fabulous.”
Two new singles, currently being worked to various radio formats, typify the album’s appeal. Heartfelt love song The Greatest boasts a vulnerable vocal delivery perfect for Top 40. And the pulsing Hello Heartbreak, which Williams says was inspired by Annie Lennox, seems poised to become another club smash.
“I am a walking iPod shuffle,” Williams says. “I just didn’t want to be pigeonholed into one genre. It was natural for me to go back to doing R&B/pop music because that’s what Destiny’s Child was known for.”
The Houston trio released four studio albums and sold more than 50 million discs worldwide, cementing its place in pop-music history.
Williams joined Destiny’s Child in 2000, making her first appearance in the Say My Name video. She applied her airy vocals to several of the group’s biggest hits, including Independent Women Part I, Survivor, Bootylicious and Lose My Breath.
Though she calls Chicago home, Williams has vivid memories of the group’s home base.
“I remember my very first condo was in Houston. The very, very first vehicle I ever bought was in Houston. It was a truck,” Williams says.
Once the girls embarked on solo careers, conscious decisions were made to keep them from directly competing with each other. Beyoncé took the pop route, Rowland headed for R&B, and Williams took up gospel.
Perhaps inevitably the comparisons still came. And though Williams found sustained success as a gospel artist and landed a plum role in the national touring production of The Color Purple musical, she was always itching to break out.
“My manager, Mathew (Knowles), wanted me to do another gospel album. I just felt in my heart this was the right timing to do this,” Williams says.
“I’m making a statement with this album — Michelle is feisty. She’s not the quiet one. She’s not at church 24/7. She’s not on the altar sprinkling blessed oil everywhere. She has fun.”
Former Destiny’s Child star Michelle Williams slid into depression following the band’s break-up – because she missed Beyonce Knowles and Kelly Rowland so much.
The hit trio had a brief hiatus to pursue their solo projects but reunited in 2004 to release their fifth and final studio album, Destiny Fulfilled.
And Williams says the pain of being apart from her beloved bandmates left her heartbroken – she would burst into tears at the mere mention of their names.
She tell’s Britain’s You magazine, “We all went through a depression when Destiny’s Child broke up.
“I remember going out to lunch with a friend and he asked how Beyonce and Kelly were and I burst into tears because I missed them so much and he suggested I needed counselling.
It wasn’t that bad, just a natural response after spending so much time together.”
Untill i get the comments to work, I have added a tag board in the sidebar, for you to post comment in. 
Welcome back to the new cersion of Michelle Web. I hope you like the new version. I’m still missing a few things on the subpages, so therefore the navigation is not up yet. I except it to be finish tomorrow.
There is a problems with the comments, I’m trying to fix it.
