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Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,331) by Andrew from UK That was insightful and really brutally honest. Bloody hell. You remind me of my posts a few years ago. I can promise you such insight is wasted here. andrewjamesgold@gmail.com If I haven't pissed you off already, message me. Let's WhatsApp. What absolute truth. (Wednesday 21 November 2018; 00:53)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,330) by Chicago Lamb from USA In Mariah's own words, "It ain't that serious, dahling." (Wednesday 21 November 2018; 00:51)

Re: Re: Giving me life (86,263) (86,277) (86,329) by Andrew from UK There's a comparison video on YouTube that led me to the video of the end adlibs once more. I didn't post it because Mariah is lipping the ending and it's not fair as a comparison because Mariah's OHN is the definitive version. It is perfection in every syllable. The "ooh yeah" on the ad libs is the most melty voice that made me fall in love with Mariah. I'm glad someone is feeling Christmas Mariah with me because... (Wednesday 21 November 2018; 00:46)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,328) by RibbonB from USA Very interesting long take on Ms. Carey. I can agree with some of it. But one of her great strengths is her versatility, and chameleon like qualities. Yet she still puts her signature, her mark on whatever she does. Prince was an ever changing, conflicted artist. Many of the best are. She definitely doesn't want to be stagnant. So called big words aside, her lyrical content has seemed strained, maybe a reflection of her state of mind, even as she says she's in a good space. She's being cautiously careless, which in itself is conflicted. But life is rarely concrete or cut from stone. 8th Grade is a minimalist poetic gem, with no clear details, she transports me at least to possibilities. Her voice shows subtle passion and the r and b groove is just enough. This song should be in radio now. (Wednesday 21 November 2018; 00:13)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,327) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines You made some very good points, mostly with the part where Mariah's output, just like everybody else's, has been tailored to fit the current trends in music. This is something that happens to everyone, no matter how defiant to change a certain artist may be. They have to adapt and move with the times if they're aiming for longevity. And that's how Mariah has been. She has been described by several critics as a transient artist, and had she been the same way she was in the first 5 years of her career, she probably wouldn't have lasted as long and have the influence she still has today. What she can do with her voice is more dependent on her physical capabilities rather than the right material. But I feel she has increasingly written songs to adapt to her current physical capabilities at the time. So much so that it has become more and more apparent when she pushes herself beyond her limits (i.e. most of of the shouted belts on this album would have sounded less forced with her 2005 voice). So the staccato phrasing, the significantly less melismatic turns (if any at all these days), and the long lines that are now always sung with rapid fire delivery are done to fit the current state of her waning vocal ability. This fast, multisyllabic rapper-style talk-singing that first started as experimentation in Butterfly and has become a staple in every album since then, except that by Charmbracelet onwards you could tell that it was more of a necessity more than a choice. It felt like Mariah was looking for new ways to use her instrument to make up for the things she can no longer do as well as she could. Mariah has always been wiser than her years when it comes to writing. But one cannot compare Vision of Love to One Mo' Gen. No, the sex jam has not replaced the love song. For Caution, she justbdecided to go with the former more than the latter. As Cry. and Camouflage demonstrate in her last album, she still has it in her to write deep, meaningful, classic lyrics - when she wants to (all caps). Mariah has become increasingly more liberal at the way she choose to express herself, which is why songs like A No No and Portrait and GTFO can exist harmoniously in a Mariah album in 2018 when X-Girlfriend, Did I Do That? and the Heartbreaker (Remix) stuck out from the rest of Rainbow in 1999. As great as Mariah's mature writing was in her earlier years, it wasn't all that, as a lot of her material then often relied on platitudes and clichés, and most of it, though quite pretty and poetic, felt either very contrived (straight out of a Hallmark card) or oblivious to reality (There's Got To Be A Way, anyone?). She has always been a great storyteller but what's changed is that her elegant, more poetic phrases in The Roof (in which she first name-dropped a brand name) and Babydoll have become more and more specific, directly narrative and practical in nature than descriptive (Crybaby, Clown, We Belong Together, Betcha Gon' Know, The Art Of Letting Go, 8th Grade) and therefore less universal. But that's the magic of Mariah these days. Many people assume she has increasingly regressed in terms of maturity when it comes to her songwriting when it's obvious that she has just learned to express herself more freely in different ways and could still pull out something like Portrait when she wishes and put it beside Stay Long Love You. But yes, she could be more selective about the references she makes as they are are hit or miss, and some of them do leave a time stamp and are even cringeworthy (the Fritos one in Infinity has to be the worst, followed by Windex on Obsessed) and cheapen the song. She can definitely learn to edit herself and not dish them out just for the sake of being clever or funny. And lastly, her "fake" persona. I believe it's been the opposite that's actually happened. Now I do not know Mariah at all on a personal level. I only know her from the glimpses she allows us to see her through her interviewd and songs and so I am in no position to assume that this ghetto or hood image she has "adopted" since the Butterfly-Rainbow era is not the real her. But all I know is that Mariah during the earlier years of her career was not even allowed to have a personality of her own. She was restricted and suppressed, and true enough much of that reflected in her music. Slick and sanitized, it was Tommy's version of Mariah that shone through her material up until 1995, when she really started to get rebellious creatively. I have no idea how she was raised before that, but she did grow up in a broken family in New York and had spent much of her childhood in and around a neighborhood where hip hop was born, so the chances of that influencing her are impossible to ignore. She is an avid hip hop fan. It's been the R&B and soul greats that she was first exposed to, but she loved rap music and was in New York in its inception. It's not like she turned into some hoodrat overnight and decided to stick with it. Eloquent expression and a prim and proper, demure demeanor can also come from any woman who is has a ghetto attitude. These contradictions can simply be different facets of someone's personality. Let us not be myopic about this. Mariah did love to party and socialize in her teenage years - she even smoked then so we cannot simply peg her as this very conservative, almost sexless and inoffensive lady that some executive forced her to be during the first half of the 90s. If there's any fake persona she has put on though the years, that would be her over the top diva and celebrity antics that have taken a life of its own and have eventually overshadowed her, and not her street image. Now that profanity has fully and unapologetically made its uncensored way into her music (the on-record cussing started way back in 2002 by the way), that in no way means she's fully realized this ghetto "façade". It only means she doesn't care too much anymore that her occasionally potty mouth started to really bleed into her songwriting. It's unnecessary and not for everyone, but it is what it is. All the personality changes you have mentioned feel more like a part of Mariah's ongoing evolution (quite a gradual, organic one at that) in growing more comfortable in her own skin rather than a mask she had to suddenly wear to stand out or to have a certain image. Mariah's street persona never felt forced, at least to me. The Fantasy Remix was the first sign of the cracks showing. It may have come as a shock to most then, but how it's progressed over time has always seemed authentic. And the sexy image and sexy songs that pretty much define her and her output especially in this latest album shouldn't really come as a surprise from the same woman who debuted at #1 in 1997 with Honey, a euphemism for a certain male bodily fluid. If there's anything we can really complain about, it's that she's become less and less subtle in her expression of her sexuality to the point that it now often replaces her talent and musical contributions as talking points in the media. (Wednesday 21 November 2018; 00:11)

Why torture yourself? (86,326) by Todd from Melbourne, Australia If somebody really likes Sprite, it baffles me completely why that person would keep buying can after can of Coke, and then being disappointed that it's not Sprite. (Wednesday 21 November 2018; 00:05)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,325) by Will from Australia While I do think Mariah has earned the right to sing the alphabet backwards through a helium voice if she likes, some of the points you have raised, especially the comparison between her writing from those days to these days, are quite interesting and I praise you for being so honest with your opinion. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 23:42)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,324) by george golden from uk She has moved on from pop music. Leave Mariah alone and move on with your life. Bye. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 22:39)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,323) by Deedre aka MiTodoChop @HBF from Canada I can't deny that playing Caution is not like playing her earlier material. The music world in general terms is lacking lyric and vocal content with substance. Most of the music I listen to today isn't radio popular it's singer/songwriter or independent artists. If I wasn't a Mariah fan, I probably wouldn't have much of a sense of what the music industry is doing now to be trendy. Lol. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 22:22)

Re: A No No feat. Cardi B and Li'l Kim (86,298) (86,322) by 123 from USA I agree Elena and can I say respectfully. You fine girl. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 22:11)

Re: One Mo' Gen (86,257) (86,321) by Billy from Greece Loved your message, enwar, and I totally get where you're coming from. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 21:50)

Caution (86,320) by Tameka walker from United states Hey lambs. I just want to share with you what happened to me when I tried to get Mariah 's album. I went around 7 am to get the album at Walmart but they did not have it out yet. This was Friday the 16th. So I went back around two they still didn't have it so I found this guy that works for Walmart and he had to go in the back where they had it. I waited two hours for him to go through the boxes and then I was able to buy the album. I think if it happened to me I tend to think that this experience could have happened to some one else. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 21:48)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,319) by ADAM from USA First off Chris1992, what a beautiful, detailed assessment of Mariah's latest album and overall status. It was very heartfelt and interesting to read. I felt exactly the way you did probably in 2008. However now, I feel the opposite. I think the Mariah we see and hear now is the one she always was. I think Caution is finally the album she always wanted to create. She's a master lyricist and yes her voice is gone. However, she's learned how to adapt her lower register which is still beautiful to fit the mold of today's climate of music. As much as we all love her golden voice, no one is in more pain over its demise than Mariah herself. I can't imagine the guilt she must feel over her voice. However, I've learned to let it go and enjoy her music for what it is. Everything she does at this point is always a choice. It not a necessity. She will eventually not be here anymore and I want to remember and enjoy her for what she was and is. I personally love the Caution album. The production is great and seamless. I never skip any song. I think its what Memoirs tried to be. I hope she continues to let Jay Z and Roc Nation guide her. Tommy Mottola was right in his autobiography. I remember a section when he said he always encouraged MC to produce alot of work and stay in the studio and be with the right people because his work as an executive he knew that all artists hit a creative wall and no longer produce their best work so basically strike while the irons hot. Her knew her voice/talent was in its prime and worked overtime to protect that. I'm so glad Tommy was in her life when he was because if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have her best work, let alone the Christmas album. It's amazing how many points Tommy was behind in her career which made Mariah the superstar she is. Christmas album, Hero, Walter Afansieff, etc. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 21:38)

Re: Caution next single should be? (86,303) (86,318) by B from USA I don't think Caution is going disappear a week or two after its release. I think when people that don't follow her career that closely go to Spotify to stream AIWFCIY they'll discover Caution and give it a listen. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 21:35)

Mariah at New Years festivities (86,316) by T from USA Does everyone realize that new years eve is on a Thursday night this year. So if she is planning to return to the stage one more time at times square to debut A No No feat. Cardi B and Lil Kim it will be available to download right at the beginning of Friday morning and if there is a video ready to go we could be looking at a #1 debut the first week of January. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 21:08)

Promo with SNL (86,315) by Tyler from USA I'll start by saying I am extremely pleased with MC's team and promotion this era. Everything from the shows, her outfits, interviews and performances are close to near perfection. The only thing I wish were added was hosting and performing on SNL. She is coming a cross extremely likable, relatable and humble. Her sense of humor is really showing with the dialing back of the divaness. I think SNL would of been an excellent platform to show her sense of humor and to jokingly make fun of herself. I could see so many of the skits going viral. Can you imagine a GTFO skit? Roc Nation needs to make this happen. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 21:04)

Mariah looks happy (86,314) by TheOne from UK Mariah looks and acts like the Mariah from the late 90s. She's sounding mature, the right amount of playful. She's not going on tangents. She doesn't look uncomfortable in interviews. I feel like she's found herself again. The real Mariah seems to be present. I love seeing her in interviews atm. So proud of how she's turned a corner on a personal level. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 20:33)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,313) by anonymous from UK Actually feel it's an excellent post, and I read the whole thing. Thank you for taking the time to write it. But, and of course there's always a but, I have to respond. The world at large right now seems to celebrate superficiality, where real emotions, feelings and thoughts are derided and are marketed as uncool, unsexy, and frankly things to be scared of. The way the world is going is like what everyone is scared of - the human race worries robots and tech will overtake the world, so before we lose control and that happens, we'll make the humans the emotionless robots first, driven only by consumption, uncaring to the multitude of emotion that makes a human being, well, a human being. Today, it's more about loving yourself and the things that make you feel good, even for a fleeting moment, even at the expense of others. It made me feel good, so tough luck, baby. The media and the arts seem intent to turn us into selfish, self-centred narcissists with no greater agenda than to self-preserve. So either you turn into a heartless machine or you perish. Mariah is a deeply feeling, emotional and responsive human being, and that just doesn't sell anymore. It's not what the powers that be want us to be. They have realised they can make more money, control more people by stripping them of emotion and replacing it with crass, unfeeling, ultimately meaningless exchange of ideas. Very precious little is real anymore. It has been given over to people pretending they are always happy, optimistic, fulfilled people. I guess ultimately what I'm saying with this post is, as much as you, I am sad Mariah can't be herself truly now, but if she were to be, she'd truly have no audience. Not that she does now anyway, but I think the way she is reacting is an overall reaction most of the human race is feeling toward on one hand being encouraged to acknowledge mental health and feelings yet at the same time being told any negative emotion or feeling is scary, bad and somehow wrong. Just my two cents, but again I loved your post and I feel the same as you about many aspects of it. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 20:31)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,312) by Carlos from Brazil Chill man, chill. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 20:30)

Re: Sales (86,289) (86,311) by Jamie from UK Hilton I always love your positivity. We can do this. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 20:03)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,310) by Bobby A from United States Let's look at Caution's as Mariah Carey's debut album. I try not to think about her as artist who was once this huge vocal powerhouse from the 90's whose pengame was well ahead of her peers. She is putting out R&B music that is filled with hip hop lyrics and rapid repetitive style singing. This is what she is most comfortable with at this point in her life. I believe she is going to bring something different when she performs the album on the Caution World Tour. I am predicting huge things are coming in 2019 like Caution Part 2, a making of Caution DVD, and a DVD of the Caution World Tour. We have to hear those JD tracks in 2019. Can you imagine the things her team can do to the stage set and dancer performances on this intimate tour? Remember how good she sounded on the intimate Angel's Advocate tour. The 90's MC is gone from her mind at this point. Embrace the R&B Mariah because she is here to stay. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 19:47)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,309) by Jamie from UK Maybe it's how you perceive her to be? The balladeer wouldn't have lasted past the 90's unfortunately. Often early on in a musicians career especially back then the record company would turn people into who they wanted them to be (George Michael, Whitney to name a couple). Inevitably like every human we evolve and change over time. I personally love this album and vocally it's stronger than MIAM. She's more edgy like on Butterfly. Is it a Music Box? No but that type of music isn't made anymore. Best thing to do is appreciate the journey she's been on, no ones perfect. Artistry comes and goes, who's to say she won't write a huge hit in 10 years time? (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 19:41)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,308) by bliss! from Brazil Hey Chris, I really appreciate your words about the album, it's nice to read all kinds of opinions, especially from early 90s fans. I just keep wondering if the fact that she's singing about childish, casual, self-referential topics is a reflection of a woman who felt she found love (with Nick) - and got terribily devastated when it ended - and now has found that life should be taken less seriously, but always with an underlying caution? Maybe the light-hearted quality of the album is a reflection of how she's dealing with things right now, and maybe this approach is healthier for her? And even, let's say, Mariah losing herself in this ghetto-princess fantasy is in fact Mariah losing touch with reality after all this years trapped in this celebrity world? I also think she gets frustrated with how she's perceived and how she sees herself, reason why she's always claiming to be a song writer first, and not only a singer. You really gave me a lot of food for thought. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 19:20)

Re: A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) (86,307) by Bill from the UK Well that killed the mood. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 19:04)

A lengthy meditation on the album (86,306) by Deleted from Czech My honest appraisal of the album and general musings on Mariah's creative decline, as a fan of Mariah's 90's music. I have always defended Mariah and she will always be my favourite female artist, but I really do see this album as epitomizing everything wrong with the path she's been walking creatively for a long time. -The Music is as synthetic and artificial as the blue tint of her skin on the album cover. Everything is so computerized now, everything is built upon digital beats and samples. Where "Emotions" brought to mind images of a live band of musicians putting it all together in some tucked-away studio in the back alleys of New York, "Caution" makes me think of a lonely sound engineer with dorito dust all over his face cutting beats in a home studio, copy-pasting some heavily edited vocals that Mariah's team just sent to his inbox. Everything feels so dead and inhuman. It really is the musical equivalent of all of her photoshopped album covers over the past few years. Of course, this is only a reflection of the general trends in popular music at large, which is one of the reasons we don't have talents like Mariah anymore. Why bother honing real authentic singing talent when people prefer synthetic music anyway? It's also one of the reasons Mariah lip syncs so much now, for what need is there to sing music as artificial as this with your natural voice? Nothing else about it is natural. I don't understand how people can complain about her lip syncing but apparently feel enthusiastic about the synthetic sound of her albums for the past 20 years, one follows quite logically from the other. Why should we demand natural vocals when we accept synthetic music made entirely on computers? - Vocals are without doubt the worst we've ever heard from Mariah, and not because her voice is damaged. A damaged voice can still possess beauty, it can lend an air of wisdom or tragedy or world-weariness to the right music and actually enrich it. I know that Mariah's voice still has beauty and the right material could bring that out. The problem here is threefold... firstly, this is the antithesis of the right material, the songwriting is infantile and unbefitting of a woman of Mariah's talent and years. Secondly, her voice is buried under lifeless digital production which strips it of it's dignity, truth and character. Lastly, she can't hide just how indifferent she has become to the art of singing now... Everything is robotic, there's no passion or depth of feeling, she's about as expressive as Microsoft Sam on these cuts. Granted it's hard to sing material like this with conviction, but even her signature vocal melodies and melismatic phrasing are nowhere to be found... everything is sung straight, it's all flat and basic. Anybody could have written these vocal lines and anybody could sing them. - She continues to write and sing in a completely false, contrived "street" idiom, now complete with obscenities and expletives. Who is she trying to fool exactly? Mariah, you're the daughter of an Irish American Opera singer from the midwest and you were raised by her on Long Island. You're naturally well spoken and remarkably eloquent as the countless interviews from the 90's prove but you insist on dumbing yourself down and trying to be something you're not. You're not ghetto, you're not hood and you never will be but you've been speaking and singing with a fake hood affectation for about 20 years, playing make believe as a ghetto princess. This facade has to fall some day. I suppose we can understand it through comprehending Mariah's fascination with Marilyn Monroe... Marilyn too put on a mask and turned herself into a product to be packaged and sold. She had to sacrifice Norma Jean to do it. - The lyrical content is abysmal, it's actually cringe inducing at times. There's no substance, everything sounds like some kind of narcissistic self-referential in-joke, the songs are ill-defined and don't seem to have any organised theme... It's like she's going off on a lyrical tangent on every cut. A few pop-culture references here, namedropping a luxury brand there. This is not timeless writing. It's inane and juvenile. Nothing reflects any kind of higher values, there's no wisdom, no narrative, no storytelling, no tragedy, no catharsis. All that's left is money, sex, celebrity, and sass. - The Mariah love ballad has now been all but replaced by the Mariah sex anthem. "One Mo Gen", "Stay Long Love You", "Caution", "With You" erase the distinction between love and lust. All the purity and the high romantic ideals that imbued her early music with an almost spiritual dignity have given way to vulgarity and artless references to sex acts. The woman who once sang "I had a vision of love, and it was all that you turned out to be" now sings "do you mind if we go back in one mo' gen?". When it was once "looking inside you my world is complete, I struggled to find you, now I'm free" it is now "you make me, make me wanna do that thing and do that thing, yeah". She's actually managed to become her own musical antithesis, you can't reconcile that Mariah with this one. Mariah will never write an honest love song again, will she? I don't think she believes in those songs anymore, she won't allow herself to be vulnerable like that. Everything has to be edgy, everything has to be "fun", which is so often just a cover for meaninglessness and nihilism. Even Portrait just feels like an insincere retread of something she said better a long time ago. The way I see it, the basic problem with Mariah's music and image for a very long time has been this... for all of her otherworldly talent as a singer and a songwriter, she's never had a strong sense of who or what she wants to be as either an artist or as a person, she has no sense of her creative strengths, and so as much as it pains me to admit it she ultimately lacks artistic integrity. That explains how she was able to so quickly transition from her roots as a Soul/Gospel/classic RnB balladeer with an operatic twist (90-93) to a pop princess (93-97) to a Hip Hop diva (97 onwards). It explains how quickly and completely the image was able to devour the art, Mariah didn't know if she wanted to be known as songbird supreme or hip hop sex diva extraordinaire. She ultimately sacrificed her artistry for an image that had seduced her, an image she desired to present to the world, not necessarily who she was but clearly what she wanted to be... after achieving worldwide mega-fame she no longer desired to be seen anymore as the sensitive balladeer she was when she started, but instead as an icon of celebrity, power, sex and success. So she abandoned her true calling as an artist, the very thing that made her brilliant, her unmatched talent as a balladeer, to pursue the fantasy of being an international sex symbol and ghetto diva. She's been in creative free fall ever since. The girl can't decide whether she's a gangsta rapper from the hood or Marilyn Monroe. It's sad more than anything else, she can't just be herself, she's a tangle of contradictions and confusions. The consequences? Creatively, her art has become lifeless and infantile, there is absolutely no wisdom to be found in it when she once showed wisdom beyond her years, and I believe her legacy has been permanently compromised. Personally I wonder what her inability to mature means for her... you can't be 12 forever. If you won't take the mask off yourself, time will inevitably strip it away. (Tuesday 20 November 2018; 18:43)

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