''Gotta pack up my yesterdays,'' Monica sighs on the Mary J.-style phone-call intro to New Life. But by the sound of it, the singer hasn't closed her suitcases yet. Her seventh album is a thoroughly last-millennium set of self-help ballads about starting over (''Take a Chance'') and finding strength in tears (''Cry''), set to the kind of cheesy slow-jam beats that were hot back during Monica's previous life as a '90s teen phenom. C+
Best Tracks:
Sassy brush-off It All Belongs to Me
String-filled Cry
