Meet the new Mariah, same as the old
Mariah. Depending on how you view the
old Mariah Carey, of course, her artistic
and stylistic running-in-place is either
cause for celebration or simply
bothersome. After all, fans across the
world have liked the sassy pop diva's
music enough to buy a combined
eighty million copies of her first six
albums. But the strangely detached-
sounding singer's penchant for
overusing her five-octave voice--and
doing so on piffle, at that--has also
made her one of pop's biggest targets
this side of Michael Bolton.
Although her record company claims she reaches "a new level of
musical vision and artistry" on Butterfly, Carey's fifth proper studio
album and seventh overall should strike critics and fans alike as more of
the same. As such, it will do little to either diminish the singer's
enormous popularity (the album's hip-hop-flavored, Puff Daddy-fathered
lead single, Honey, is already a No. 1 hit) or help her shed her status
as a critical pariah. For starters, she still often sounds robotic, as if
there's no emotion behind her technically sound vocal motion. Take
The Roof, which rides an ill-fitting sample of Mobb Deep's new-school
East Coast rap classic "Shook Ones"; here, Carey sounds as if she's
sleepwalking through her lyrics about a warm moment during an
otherwise cold relationship. Then there's the material itself--though
Carey and her team of writers and producers are undeniably gifted at
crafting pop songs and consistently coming up with radio-ready hooks,
the predictably vapid lyrics leave much to be desired. Consider the
opening lines of the album's schmaltzy title track: "When you love
someone so deeply/ They become your life." Deep.
But Carey's biggest problem is still her tendency to show off her
miraculous, yet lifeless, vocal talents. Granted, she has reined in her
tea-kettle voice somewhat since her stupefying 1990 debut, but she still
has a tendency to go way, way over the top. On the breathy Fourth of
July, for example, Carey shatters any daydreams of restraint when she
blows her vocal dog whistle three minutes into the song for no apparent
reason. Similarly, a sensual and otherwise beautiful duet with Dru Hill
on Prince's The Beautiful Ones is marred by her gratuitous vocal
gymnastics. Until she finds a decent lyricist and stops shrieking like a
twelve-year-old at a Hanson concert, Carey has little chance of reaching
that "new level of musical vision and artistry" that her press release
promises.
--Josh Freedom du Lac; Wall of Sound
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