Mariah Carey’s new album is ‘Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse’ and, as fans know all too well it is her first new album in five years. Long awaited, yes, and now the music critics are weighing in. Find out what they have to say.
‘Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse’ is her fourteenth album and it is the first since the 2009 release, ‘Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.’ While that is a few years, it’s not quite so long that we must give it the obligatory “comeback” appellation, but yet in many ways it is a comeback.
While Mariah Carey has never disappeared from headlines, she has been more of an inhabitant of the celebrity realm, with the birth of twins, and with it the typical fanfare that ensures as celebrity watchers begin to scrutinized the baby bump, the baby pictures and, of course, the post-baby body debut.
But with one album Mariah Carey has reminded everyone of why she is above all a pop music diva, and deservedly so. Needing no gimmicks, just an incredible voice of immense range, expression and power. Critics are giving her mostly positive reviews, indeed, quite a few rave reviews.
Here’s a roundup.
“….Working with longtime collaborator Jermaine Dupri, Carey front-loads the track list with midtempo R&B and soulful torch songs that spotlight her best asset: That Voice….” — Entertainment Weekly
“….Whether in more elegant ballads, or most assertive R&B songs, the new tunes give Carey more to play with than usual. It’s as if she’d been listening to Beyonce’s albums, gaining tips for how to bridge trendy music with the classic type. Even a hip-hop influenced ditty like “Thirsty” has a broad tune. Contrary to its title, the new album may be Carey’s least elusive work. Rarely has she made her talent more clear. …” — New York Daily News
“….Admittedly, there’s a good deal of clutter: not just 90s R&B throwbacks such as You’re Mine (Eternal) and a gospelised cover of George Michael’s One More Try, but an appearance by her three-year-old twins. Yet she’s also at her most soulful and melodic, and the best of the bunch, such as the dreamy 70s disco of Meteorite, make this album a welcome return….” — The Guardian
“….The usual, more or less. Musically, it’s her typical mix of pop-classicist balladry and hip-hop-tinged summer jamming, and if Carey doesn’t exactly go strutting into new territory, it’s because she knows most people like her right where she is….” — Billboard
“…Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse” finds Carey revisiting days gone by, both in terms of musical styles and collaborators like Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox and Rodney Jerkins. The result is a refreshing rebound from 2009′s so-so “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angle.”….” — The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“….Me. I Am Mariah…The Elusive Chanteuse (which should count as a self-titled album) finds her owning her multiple personalities, minus the caricature. It’s a successful merger of her opposing images: the forever-young R&B star known to skate at a theme park in daisy dukes and the balladeer who finger-wags behind a mic in a gown. …” — VIBE
“….So what’s most striking about Carey’s new album — titled, rather insistently, Me. I Am Mariah …The Elusive Chanteuse…is how relaxed and confident she sounds. Gone is the self-consciousness that marred her last studio album, 2009′s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. Instead, Carey — whose delays of Chanteuse’s release date inspired predictable hand-wringing (as did the less-than-spectacular performance of the lead singles) — gives the impression that her only concerns are meeting her own standards, and those of the fans who have stuck with her through everything. …” — USA Today
While Beyonce was a game changer in surprising the entire world — including music industry insiders — with a surprise album, Mariah Carey, on the other hand, has delivered a surprise all her own for the skeptics and the detracters, in meeting if not exceeding expectations and hopes.
Pictures: PR Photos
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