Three people you hear almost as much as Mariah Carey on the new Mariah Carey single:
1) Rick Ross
2) Meek Mill
3) Jermaine Dupri
Mariah-why?
You are 42 years old. Can you please stop trying to be hip, and just sing? Not that the diva sounds ill-at-ease on the first single from her upcoming album (and first since giving birth to twins a year ago,) but she does sound like she’s chasing a hit rather than making the music she’s capable of. Although, after album after album in which it seemed like “oh man, maybe Mariah’s gonna make a REALLY good string of records,” at this point I’m just thinking it’s never gonna happen. So, I’m disappointed.
“Triumphant” isn’t bad, but I could think of at least 50 Mariah songs that I enjoy more. She sounds in strong voice here, at least. Still, act your age woman! Granted, Mary J. Blige (who, let’s remember, is only a year younger than Mariah) hasn’t exactly slowed down on the hip-hop cameo front, but at least her lyrics reveal a certain maturity, and the rappers she chooses to work with are almost always appropriate for her sound. Mimi? No mas. Here’s hoping this song isn’t indicative of the rest of her upcoming work.
7 comments
John says:
Aug 8, 2012
I was working on an analogy for this situation, but it got too convoluted. Needless to say, all this shows me is that Mimi doesn’t have faith in her ability to score a hit on her own, which is sad.
blerd says:
Aug 8, 2012
I agree.
GG says:
Aug 9, 2012
Here’s what’s odd to me (and this is generally about artists who get older): is it the fear of failure that makes her lean towards dumbing down their stuff and adding rappers/whatever is hot at the time? She’s had several albums to figure this out and you can argue that her last couple of albums were the worst of her career.
Her voice has always been her meal ticket. Always. I know she started to lean toward hip hop production in the late 90s, but guess what; rap fans weren’t the ones buying her stuff. The audience she built with her voice and smart song choice by the people in charge is who stayed with her. But she’s just pushed a lot of that original fan base away.
It’s like the dumbest thing ever. Everyone sees how album sales trend these days. Mariah isn’t going to sell like Adele anymore. Mariah was Adele 20 years ago. But if she leaned toward what her fan base wants, she’d give herself a much better chance to succeed again and we wouldn’t have to hear the word comeback ever 3 or 4 years with her. There is a small audience that wants to hear Ricky Ross. But that audience is dwarfed by the people who want to hear Mariah sing her ass off.
blerd says:
Aug 9, 2012
I would have to say that I agree with you there. She’s chasing trends instead of being herself.
But what if this is really who she is and the old Mariah wasn’t?
Weird…
GG says:
Aug 10, 2012
I’m pretty sure this Mariah is probably who she wants to be. But she built up a specific fan base and then just chased them away. Not a smart marketing plan there. She really should just go harder with the R&B stuff like she did with the Mimi record.
blerd says:
Aug 10, 2012
I feel like this is the type of music she should’ve made when she was 20, and she should be doing “Vision of Love” stuff now.
GG says:
Aug 10, 2012
You’re probably right.