Mariah Carey
Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse

To fully understand the events (as well as the misfortunes) of the most talked-about (ex?) golden voice of modern times, one must make a small but significant leap back in time. Mariah Carey debuted in 1990 with Vision Of Love and for the angelic twenty-year-old fresh-faced girl, it represented the beginning of a glorious career filled with both amusement park-style descents and Everest-like climbs. The self-titled debut album produced three other number one hits (Love Takes Time, Someday, I Don't Wanna Cry) and effectively launched the golden decade under the protective wing of Columbia and, above all, talent manager Tommy Mottola, with whom she would marry in 1993 (momentarily sharing the same strategy as Celine Dion, that is, marrying the oldie René Angelil, her undeniable mentor). Meanwhile, Emotions, the MTV Unplugged session, the delightful multi-platinum and multi-diamond Music Box - as simple in sound as it was charming and enveloping in the vocal performance of a new Whitney/Aretha in her prime – and the successful festive formula of Merry Christmas, with that All I Want For Christmas Is You that still echoes from the stained-glass windows of church chapels to pseudo Walmarts of Liechtenstein, were released.

In the mid-1990s, the acclaimed Carey-Mottola duo began showing the first signs of strain: Mariah opposed the musical choices imposed by her husband-manager, striving for a more adult, R&B, anti-syrupy image, unwilling to dive into the tragic waves of the Titanic like her colleague Dion. She began to flirt – first timidly and then more brazenly – with Black artists, ghetto and ghetto-inspired. Daydream and Butterfly, featuring their standout singles (Fantasy, One Sweet Day, Always Be My Baby, Honey, My All), sold massively and testified to a significant sonic rise, but Mottola and company launched the first phases of a controversial boycott: songs destined for even more brilliant receptions – Butterfly, Breakdown, The Roof – were staggered in release, in select geographic contexts only, and did not receive the proper promotion due to a star like Mariah. As a result, she shredded her marriage documents with her beloved in 1998 and slammed the door on Columbia, not before releasing Rainbow, which was also beset by commercial delivery issues.

Having clumsily and awkwardly closed the Columbia chapter, Mariah went into meltdown. Disjointed statements on the web and appearances on Total Request Live in the guise of a psychotic ice cream seller at red lights led her to an emotional breakdown and forced hospitalization, not to mention the announced disaster of Glitter film+album, trashed by every walking sapien and even so ill-fated as to be released in theaters two days after September 11. Virgin, with whom she had signed a new record contract, showed her the door - compensating her with a few paltry millions - and abandoned her to her unhappy fate. Not even Charmbracelet restored affairs, and thus Miss Carey plotted a stellar comeback, which punctually arrived in 2005 with The Emancipation Of Mimi: sales returned to Butterfly levels, We Belong Together remained atop the American Hot 100 for fourteen weeks, and the critic-public duo resumed flashing warm smiles. Mimi would nevertheless be the only notable peak post-Columbia since subsequent E=MC2 and Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel along with their respective follow-up singles (with exceptions like Touch My Body and Obsessed) would push the lever of small millions to levels decidedly lower in comparison to the past.

So here we are at the crucial matter: is Mariah Carey experiencing a second downhill phase? The antecedents and labor to give birth to the brand new Me. I Am Mariah...The Elusive Chanteuse (cacophony of the title take me away) seem to confirm the hypothesis: in 2012, Triumphant, a burnt sugar ballad with a hip hop crew in tow, didn't even enter the top hundred, an objective achieved instead by #Beautiful the following spring. The good success didn’t encourage the artist to release the album, and only six months later, she released the excellent The Art of Letting Go (revival of Vision of Love), which unfortunately went unnoticed. The same fate befell the recent You're Mine (Eternal), not overly praised by fans and refined palates.

Coming to this Elusive Chanteuse, we will ask: Has dear Mariah finally abandoned that uncomfortable pairing of aesthetic hysteria (divadom at all costs, photoshop aplenty, poses at the limit of trash) and filoghetto sound unsuitable for her lineage? The answer is unfortunately/fortunately a yes/no: Mariah doesn't reject her self-canonization but returns, more consistently and convincingly, to that 90s decade that birthed her, nursed her, and consecrated her. Boxing up (though not all) the pimp rappers and spreading the candies of the early 2000s, Madame Carey returns to crafting a retro pop-soul in serious, sensible, luminescent, and lively R&B sauce, never excessively dull and stifling but rather dense with pathos and compositional harmony. Elusive Chanteuse is indeed the album (or a valid palliative) that the nostalgic of Music Box, Emotions, Daydream, and Butterfly have been waiting for many geological eras, a work of many shades, inspirations, and borrowings, a small treasure chest ready to dive into the contemporary junior tsunami of the various Miley Cyrus.

Mariah kicks off with Cry and the race to evergreen begins: piano-gospel clearly harking back to her debut. Faded and Dedicated (with rapper Nas) follow, pop-hip hop ballads decidedly out of the faux gangsta grids and more aligned with One Sweet Day territory. With You Don't Know What To Do and Meteorite, the golden voice explores danceable shores with enviable style, looking at disco-funky on one hand and 90s house on the other (already introduced in Butterfly by David Morales). And if the rappers remain in their Hollywood suites, the new R&B promise Miguel Pimentel arrives for the simple R&B ballad #Beautiful. Finally, do not discard the lively Thirsty (the only track that maybe first-hour fans might detest for the excessive pop-rap mood), the swing-funky with a country-esque harmonica of Make It Look Good, the lullaby Supernatural (complete with "noises" from the twins she had with her second husband Nick Cannon), and George Michael's One More Try cover in perfect gospel mix.

Wrapped in sparkly corsets and married to Photoshop, Mariah Carey returns to music with the class and genuineness of times long gone. We don't have Vision of Love, Emotions, Hero, Dreamlover, My All and Anytime You Need A Friend, but these more than "surrogates" will inevitably restore a decent order in our memories about the falling pop star that once was.

Mariah Carey, Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse

Cry - Faded - Dedicated - #Beautiful - Thirsty - Make It Look Good - You're Mine (Eternal) - You Don't Know What To Do - Supernatural - Meteorite - Camouflage - Money - One More Try - Heavenly (No Ways Tired/Can't Give Up)