Do you still know every word to Macy Gray’s lovesick ballad “I Try?” Us too. In fact, Gray’s chart-toppling album, On How Life Is, still sounds as refreshingly modern as it did when it was released in 1999.

At TEDGlobal2012, Macy Gray took to the stage and got the audience on their feet with a medley of songs, including a re-do of Radiohead’s “Creep,” from her 2012 album Covered. Gray has been thoroughly enamored with reinterpreting the work of others lately—in October, she released Talking Book, an ode to Stevie Wonder’s classic album as it celebrated its 40th anniversary.

Now that Gray is fresh off an international tour and a jazz collaboration with saxophone legend David Murray in New York, we asked her: what TED Talks does she love the most?

Check out Macy’s playlist to find out the four talks she selected as her favorites » 

Those of us of a certain age remember when Macy Gray first rasped her way onto the scene. The 1999 release of her debut album, On How Life Is, together with its insidiously catchy single “I Try,” sparked a multi-award-winning career which has seen Gray sell over 15 million units. A somewhat unlikely pop star, Gray is known for her uncompromising attitude to music and life. As she describes herself on Twitter, “I want to be as famous as midnight as powerful as a gun as loved as a pizza.” She’s still hard at work creating memorable music, and wearing an olive green disco suit, cobalt scarf and glittery eyelashes that surely weigh a couple of pounds each, she has taken the TEDGlobal stage now to charm us in person.

Photo: Ryan Lash
Top photo: James Duncan Davidson

TEDGlobal speaker Becci Manson snapped this gorgeous shadow of Macy Gray onstage. Via Instagram.