Showing posts with label Mariah Carey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mariah Carey. Show all posts

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Mariah Carey - "Hero" Live at X Factor

  Mariah Carey performs "Hero" live at X Factor.


Mariah Carey - I Stay In Love LIVE

  Mariah Carey performs live of "I Stay In Love" at X Factor.


Mariah Carey  - "Baby Please Comes Home"

  Mariah Carey performs live "Baby Please Comes Home" at Grammy Concert December 2008.

  Brilliant!!!


Tuesday, April 15, 2008

E=MC2


  Performer and songwriter Mariah Carey has set April 15th as the in-store date for the most eagerly anticipated album of the year, E=MC². The 11th studio album of her career, E=MC² is the follow-up to The Emancipation Of Mimi, Mariah's worldwide 10 million selling #1 album, which generated three Grammy awards (including Best Contemporary R&B Album), 2 #1 singles and countless more industry honors during its 18-month stay on the charts. The first single from E=MC² is "Touch My Body," written and produced by Mariah Carey, C. "Tricky" Stewart, and The-Dream, and blasting out worldwide on February 12th. The video for "Touch My Body" was directed by feature filmmaker Brett Ratner - Internet, cable and network premieres for the video will be announced in the weeks ahead. In addition to C. "Tricky" Stewart and The-Dream, other guest producers joining Mariah on E=MC² will include Jermaine Dupri, DJ Toomp, Stargate, Will I Am, Bryan Michael Cox, Nate "Danjahandz" Hills and James Poyser.. E=MC² is executive produced by Mariah Carey and Antonio "LA" Reid, Chairman, Island Def Jam Music Group.

  The Emancipation Of Mimi, released April 12, 2005, was an industry phenomenon for the mega-platinum award-winning superstar - Soundscan's biggest-selling album of the year, bringing total sales of Mariah's albums, singles and videos to more than 160 million worldwide, making her the most successful female recording artist in history. Mimi featured "We Belong Together" (winner of the Best Female R&B Vocal and Best R&B Song Grammys) and "Don't Forget About Us," Mariah's 16th and 17th #1 career singles respectively. They tied one of the most enduring chart records in Billboard Hot 100 history, Elvis Presley's 17 #1's. Mariah is now positioned as the only active recording artist in the 48 years of the Hot 100 (which began in 1958) with the potential to surpass the Beatles' all-time high of 20 #1 hits. (Extract)

Monday, June 6, 2005

The Emancipation Of Mimi


  The titular "Mimi" of The Emancipation of Mimi is, by all accounts, an alter ego of Mariah, a persona that captures Carey's true feelings and emotions. In case you didn't know what "emancipation" means, Mariah helpfully provides a dictionary definition of the word in the opening pages of the liner notes for her eighth proper album: it means "to free from restraint, control, oppression, or the power of another" or "to free from any controlling influence" or "to free somebody from restrictions or conventions." So, on The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah frees herself from the constraints of being herself, revealing herself to be -- well, somebody that looks startlingly like Beyoncé, if the cover art is any indication. Mimi, or at least the sound of her emancipation, sounds remarkably like Beyoncé, too, working a similarly sultry, low-key, polished club groove. And that's the main story of The Emancipation of Mimi: since the reserved, tasteful adult contemporary pop of 2002's Charmbracelet failed to revive her career, she's done a 180 and returned to R&B, in hopes that maybe this will create some excitement. It's not a bad idea, particularly because Mariah could use any change at this point, and it's not executed all that badly either, as all 14 tracks -- heavy on mid-tempo cuts and big ballads, with a few harder dance tunes featuring big-name guest rappers scattered along the way -- all follow the same deliberately smoky, late-night template. While the Neptunes provide the best dance cut here with "Say Somethin'" (featuring a cameo by Snoop Dogg), especially welcome are some nice old-school '70s smooth soul flourishes, best heard on James Poyser's deliciously sleek "Mine Again" and such "Big Jim" Wright productions as "I Wish You Knew" and "Fly Like a Bird." As good as those Wright-helmed cuts are, they are also the times that the mixes slip and don't hide the flaws in Mariah's voice, and it sounds as airy, thin, and damaged as it did on Charmbracelet, where her ragged vocals dealt a fatal blow to an already weak album. Here, apart from those Wright tracks, the producers camouflage her voice in a number of ways, usually involving putting the groove and the sound of the production in front of the vocals. While the tunes aren't always memorable, it does make for a consistent album, one that's head and shoulders above the other LPs she's released in the 2000s, even if it doesn't compare with her glory days of the '90s. Ironically enough, a big reason why The Emancipation of Mimi doesn't sound as good as those '90s albums is that Mariah never sounds like herself on this record. When she's not sounding like Beyoncé, she sounds desperate to be part of the waning bling era, dropping product placements for Bacardi, Calgon, and Louis Vuitton, or bragging about her house in Capri and her own G4, all of which sounds a little tired and awkward coming from a 35-year-old woman in her 15th year of superstardom. Disregarding these two rather sizeable problems, The Emancipation of Mimi still works, at least as a slick, highly crafted piece of dance-pop -- it might not be as hip as it thinks it is, nor is it as catchy as it should be, but it's smooth and listenable, which is enough to have it qualify as a relative comeback for "Mimi" Carey. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide