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Track listing:
1. Fields of Joy
2. Always on the Run
3. Stand By My Woman
4. It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over
5. More Than Anything In This World
6. What Goes Around Comes Around
7. The Difference is Why
8. Stop Draggin' Around
9. Flowers for Zoe
10. Fields of Joy (Reprise)
11. All I Ever Wanted
12. When the Morning Turns to Night
13. What the ... are We Saying?
14. Butterfly
"Mama Said" reached the top 40 of the Billboard album charts and songs on the album were influenced by his divorce from Lisa Bonet. It contained the hit single "It Ain't Over Til It's Over", which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #10 on the Billboard R&B charts. "Always On The Run" featured Slash of Guns N' Roses and reached #8 on the modern rock charts and #40 on the mainstream rock charts. "Stand By My Woman" would scrape the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #76, while "What Goes Around Comes Around" reached the top 40 of the Billboard R&B chart. The album would also feature a contribution by Sean Lennon.
source: wikipedia
Sometimes it's fun to take the albums of latter-day rockers and play spot-the-influence, and on Mama Said, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
"Always on the Run," with its punchy horns and emphatic vocals, is cribbed from Sly Stone.
"What Goes Around Comes Around," with its understated arrangement and Kravitz's falsetto, is straight out of Superfly-era Curtis Mayfield.
"Stand By My Woman" and "All I Ever Wanted," meanwhile, are so directly copped from John Lennon--lyrically, sonically, attitudinally--that it ought to be actionable.
Younger fans might not care about any of this, of course, because in and of themselves, Kravitz's songs are tuneful, and they do rock.
- Daniel Durchholz
Moving forward a couple years from the psychedelic fixations of his debut, Mama Said finds Lenny Kravitz in the early '70s, trying to graft Curtis Mayfield and Jimi Hendrix influences to his Prince and Lennon obsessions. This time around, he synthesizes his influences better; it's essentially a seamless record, with all of its classic rock homages so carefully produced that it sounds as if it could have been released in 1972. Kravitz's songcraft has gotten better as well, with the swirling Philly soul of "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" and the rampaging Sly Stone-meets-Hendrix "Always on the Run" standing out as instantly addictive singles. Still, some of the joy that informed Let Love Rule has worn off, largely because it's more polished and studied than its predecessor. That, however, doesn't prevent Mama Said from being another thoroughly enjoyable guilty pleasure -- its sweet soul and fuzzy hard rock are slyly seductive. Ironically for such an inviting record, Mama Said is Kravitz's divorce album, yet it never quite conveys any true pain or emotion, since he puts sound over substance. Essentially, the lyrics are afterthoughts, but with a record as immaculately produced and sonically pleasurable as Mama Said, it doesn't really matter that it's talking loud and saying nothing, because it sounds good while it's talking.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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