Let’s just stew, for a moment, in some gem lines that Mariah Carey graces us with on her new album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel:
“It’s goin’ down like a denominator.”
“Love you like a frost pop, love you like a milkshake.”
“This is for real, for real, for real. / Oprah Winfrey whole segment for real.”
“Not even a nail technician with a whole lotta gel and acrylic could fix this. If we were two Lego blocks, even the Harvard University graduating class of 2010 couldn’t put us back together again.”
“Seein’ right through you like you’re bathin’ in Windex.”
On “More Than Just Friends,” after Mariah sings “I wanna be all on your lips like gelato,” we get a helpful backup rapper exclaim “ICE CREAM!” in case we were unaware that gelato (which fits with the rhyme scheme) is ice cream.
There’s also a song called “Candy Bling.”
All said, this is Mariah doing Mariah. Same ridiculous lyrics. Same bizarre 80’s cover song (this time around, it’s Foreigner’s I Want To Know What Love Is). Same penchant for proving that she does indeed have a really awesome whistle register by using it on every goddamn song’s climax. Same font that her name’s been scrawled in for every album except last year’s E=MC2. Same vocal acrobatics all over the damn place. Same catchy, easily-digestible pop/R&B goodness. (All that’s missing, really, is a one-word title that would be better suited to a Lisa Frank line of products: something like Meadow or Breeze or Sunshine; hell, I wouldn’t put it past Mariah to have an album named French Braid.)
But all these ridiculous attributes are what make Mariah appealing. She’s campy and she’s over the top, but she seems to at least realize that she’s putting on a persona. Take, for example, the laughing that comes in at the end of that aforementioned ridiculous line about the entire Harvard University graduating class of 2010. Mariah at least isn’t oblivious, which makes this music go down easier. We’re laughing with her, not at her.
Where Memoirs falters is in variety. Her previous albums have been compilations of collaborations with several different producers, leading to albums like E=MC2 where you’ll get a reggae-influenced song, a straight-up gospel ballad, a T-Pain abomination, and a retro-inspired upbeat number all on the same album. Here, everything sounds generally like Butterfly-meets-Rainbow. Butterfly isn’t a terrible album, but Rainbow certainly is, so you get some of Rainbow’s monotonous generic R&B background droning on some tracks like “The Impossible.” As the whole album is streamlined from a production standpoint, you get a lot of the same style thrown at you – count how many songs feature a really strong snare on the 2- and/or 4-count of the beat. It’s not detrimental, but the album is on the longer side at just under an hour, so you can’t help but wonder if a couple of the songs or at least the handful of reprises or interludes could’ve been ditched.
All said, though, it’s clear that Mariah will remain relevant for at least a few more years. After the disastrous post-Glitter years, it’s nice to see one of our perennial divas in fine form for three albums in a row. (Hell – she’s courting Oscar buzz for the upcoming Precious. Who would’ve thought that would ever be possible?) I don’t know if Mariah will ever rise above the task of putting out a merely competent record and make a defining artistic statement – she certainly hasn’t yet. But on each of her albums, you see glimmers of the possibility (here, it’s probably on “Up Out My Face (Reprise),” which out of nowhere, re-contextualizes a song as a boisterous marching band instrumental – it’s kind of awesome). For now, though, we have another album of largely-enjoyable tracks to tide us until Mariah decides to push herself that extra step to make a truly great album. B+
