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''The Makings of Me'' is the fifth studio album by American recording artist Monica, released by J Records on October 3, 2006. Built upon the hip-hop, gospel and quiet storm styles of its predecessor, ''After the Storm'' (2003), Monica wanted her follow-up project to sound "very close knit and intimate". Consequently, she enlisted producers including her longtime collaborators Jermaine Dupri, Bryan Michael Cox, and Missy Elliott and new partners including The Underdogs, Tank, LRoc, Swizz Beatz, and Sean Garrett. The album garnered a mostly positive reception from music critics, and produced four singles of which all failed to chart or sell noticeably. It reached the top of U.S. ''Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and number eight on the ''Billboard'' 200,〔 selling 328,000 copies in total domestically to date.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=billboard.com )〕 In April 2007, a ''Deluxe Digital'' version of the album featuring free ringtones for "The First Night," a free cellphone wallpaper, and a blow-in card was sold by Walmart.〔 ==Background== Although most of ''The Makings of Me'' was not recorded before Monica had given birth to her first child in May 2005, the singer had started work on her then-untitled fourth album with various producers and songwriters during her pregnancy, including Missy Elliott, Bryan Michael Cox, and executive producer Jermaine Dupri. While both Elliott and Dupri contributed most to the album, the singer was anxious to keep the number of collaborators "very close knit and intimate" and thus, settled on working with producers Sean Garrett, Harold Lilly, Swizz Beatz, Tank and The Underdogs, particularly, resulting into a total of forty finished records.〔 In addition, however, Monica also recorded with Dre & Vidal, Tricky Stewart, Scott Storch, Jazze Pha, No I.D., and rappers Mannie Fresh, Akon and Young Jeezy, but none of the songs written with them eventually made the final track listing. Some of them, however, appeared on her 2007 mixtape ''Greg Street Present......Monica Made: The Mixtape''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=Ingrid.biz ) 〕 Although the album was tentatively titled ''Street Butterfly'', ''Raw'', or ''A Dozen Roses'' at one time or another, the long-player was eventually named after Curtis Mayfield's "The Makings of You", which is sampled in the album's second single "A Dozen Roses (You Remind Me)": "This album is really the makings of me because it talks about so many different scenarios, both good and bad, that have pretty much brought me to the point where I'm at mentally," Monica told in a 2006 interview with ''Billboard'', comparing it with a "musical diary where people can really see me in a lot of different lights for once." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Makings of Me」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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