Mariah Carey: Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire?

For a while here, I’ve been feeling a bit bored with the current state of rock. I don’t mean that there’s not music out right now that I’m impressed with… it’s just… I want more. Is there more out there, am I depriving myself of something that others are gladly exposing themselves to? With that question in mind I came about getting my hands’” on the latest release from Mariah Carey… and Kelly Clarkson.

To be honest, it has been a long time since I’ve really given pop music a try. Was I missing out on something that could enhance the time I spend with music on around the house? Operation: Kelly Clarkson didn’t fair so well. I did enjoy two of the songs on the album, however the results were far from what I was looking for. That shouldn’t be the only example, I thought to myself, of outreach to the blossoming pop-music culture. Should I let a young, star-in-the-making influence my view on pop music? No!

Mariah Carey The Emancipation of Mimi

Why was this album chosen over a vast catalogue of other current pop mega-stars?

#1) It has been dominating the Billboard charts as of late.
#2) Mariah Carey is an established singer and from what I’ve read, has reinvented herself after the whole Glitter debacle.
#3) Usually, where there’s smoke, there’s fire; and if nothing else, there’s hype on this album.

Track 1 – “It’s Like That”: This seems like a good song for the clubs; a good beat and not too much of Carey’s over-the-top (there I go again) vocals (or hip hop shout outs…though there are a few “Let’s go now…here we go now…WHAA”s near the end. Rating = Acceptable

Tracks 2-14: Absolutely what I remembered from pop music. There is a shift from the “new” Mariah to the “classic” Mariah sound throughout the album, but it doesn’t get the juices flowing for me. I tried…oh lord, I tried. I don’t want to start cursing and calling the album many things that it might not be, but understand this… if Snoop Dogg performing on your record doesn’t keep it poppin’, god help you Mariah. Well, not “god” per say, but… no, I take that back, let me start over:

If Snoop Dogg performing on your album doesn’t keep it poppin’, it’s time to call it quits. And thanks to Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey, my short experiment in pop music has been more than enough for me to decide to call it quits in that area of audio-exploration for the foreseeable future.