Mariah CANON

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

You get ELEVEN ticks to denote your Mariah love!



[Poll #752838]

Comments

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I genuinely can't remember any of these songs! I think I have some kind of blindspot when it comes to MC. I just screen her out of my life, except for the memory of the Westlife boys looking down her preposterous cleavage in the video to their collaborative effort.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

More or less the same for me - except I remember that I heard her cover of Without You, but I can't remember what it was like.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

"I can't LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE
If living is without Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
I can't GIIIIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIVVE
I can't GIIIIIIIIIVE any MOOOOOOOOOEOEOEOEOEORRRRE"

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

like nillson's version but MUCH more overwraught if that's not a double "super"lative...

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

Don't Stop Funkin' 4 Jamaica ?!?


Dear God, that sounds dreadful.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i know all of these except the most recent 3! also i've been v generous with ticks so perhaps my Mariah-hate is not as damning as i thought.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

actually i lie, i only know 4 from the third batch.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

I know 'Without You' isn't her song, but IMHO her version is better than Harry Nilsson's. I suppose that was when she was really at her peak... the vocals on that track were simply astounding. 'Music Box' was actually a decent album, beginning with 'Dream Lover', 'Hero' and 'Anytime You Need A Friend', speeding up a bit in the middle, before slowing right down with 'Without You'. Carey at her best, without a doubt.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

SONG OV DOOM!!!! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4319352.stm)

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

WOT?

Nilsson's version of Without You, written by Evans and fellow guitarist Pete Ham, went to number one in 1972, as did Mariah Carey's in 1990.

Mariah Carey's version went to #1 four years before it was released?

I said it before, and I'll say it again. WOT?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Poor BBC researchers there. I got my info from everyhit.com so blame them.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

SONG OV DOOM!!!!!

badfinger barely earned a penny from it, despite writing it, due to dodgy deals, leading to both frontmen of the band topping themselves in similar fashion.

i don't think mr nillson was that lucky after recording it either...

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

'Fantasy' is the one sampling 'Genius of love' by Tom Tom Club, isn't it? If not, then I meant that one.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

You are correct. Apparently. I know not of this sort of thing.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Well, I gave it another listen recently as I'd just discovered this, and it was all right! But only all right.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I remember when 'Vision of Love' came out, I was always getting Mariah mixed up with Alahhah Myles and 'Black Velvet'. Both similarly excruciating songs by previously unknown belters. Who'd've thought she'd still be around (or have taken on diva-like bodily proportions)?

I quite like some of the uptempo stuff, and am not particularly annoyed by the warbling, but there are just too many ballads.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

OI, 'BLACK VELVET' IS THE DOG'S TESTICLES. LEAVE ALANNAH ALONE!

(Apologies for the shouting, but I get quite defensive of poor Alannah)

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

... and Baby Baby by Amy Grant. it's almost a 90s belter tryptic

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

I'd be really surprised if anyone here can pick eleven. I only know of one big Mariah fan.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I admit I ticked Don't Stop Funkin 4 Jamaica on the basis of the title alone.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hahahah why do you all hate Mariah so? She's brilliant in that way that singers with low IQs always are. She also can span eight octaves. EIGHT.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

she is only as good as the stories about her wanting kittens to stroke on her peformance rider. i fear they may not be true :-(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

And the stories about her hiring someone for the SOLE PURPOSE of holding her pens when she signed rekkids!

Mariah is amazing and sometimes I think she is a LITMUS TEST for poptimism. Even when her songs are shit - which I will admit has been a significant proportion of her career though certainly not these days - she is Good To Have Around.

Have people bought back in after the breakdown

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

She lost me then and just hasn't gotten me back, to tell the truth. Like many other "shoulds," I feel like I should make a concerned effort to listen to her lastest stuff, particularly since it's been so successful in the US, which is generally unforgiving of fallen favorites, but "should" feels very anti-pop to me.

Re: Have people bought back in after the breakdown

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think the breakdown made me love her more, regardless of the music.

There's never ever ever been any feeling that one "should" love Mariah in the UK - in fact it's more often that one "should" take the piss out of her and not take her seriously as an artist. This, it goes without saying, goes firmly on the This Godforsaken Country Is Shit side of the ledger, along with the Libertines and the Futureheads.

[koganbot]

I think that Mariah is quite intelligent where her art is concerned - usually writes her own lyrics* and almost always at least co-writes the music. And though she wasn't the person to inaugurate the melding of hip-hop and r&b, she certainly helped pioneer the '90s-'00s version of it: her making the song subordinate to the overall track, her using rappers whenever possible, her using her voice as much for mood shadings as for acrobatics, and so forth. I'm told that TLC cited her as an influence in this. I tend to prefer the stuff of hers before these innovations, but I recognize the thought and experiment that went into them.

*"Someday, someday, the one you gave away will be the only one you're wishin' for/Someday, yeah, boy you're gonna pay 'cuz baby I'm the one who's keepin' score." If that's not a great pop (not to mention punk) lyric, then I don't know what is.

[answeringbell.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I picked 16 to begin with and had to untick to get back to 11.

.. and why is Breakdown not there? It would be my top 5 Mariah singles..

[answeringbell.livejournal.com]

er.. it would be in my top 5.

Oh baby, this is too deep, too deep

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'We Belong Together' = astonishing masterpiece of CRAZINESS.

Re: Oh baby, this is too deep, too deep

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Why is it that when r&b girls make ballads about being driven out of their minds because their boy has left them the result is 99% CLASSIQUE, but when emo boys do it it's 100% DUD? Apart from all the obv reasons, eg the girls can sing, the girls are not pathetic scum &c &c.

Re: Oh baby, this is too deep, too deep

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

This possibly deserves it's own thread (and may be short-cutting to the punchline to the The Lex experience), but please name five actual male voices that you enjoy.

Re: Oh baby, this is too deep, too deep

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Apart from rappers I assume:

Neil Tennant
Justin Timberlake
Usher
Will Young
Tom Waits

Re: Oh baby, this is too deep, too deep

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

to be fair to lex's obsession with singing voices, i noticed ages ago that singing style can put me off a band before i notice how good their songs are OTHERwise.

like a lot of ppl, i JUST CAN'T STICK that warbling "soul" singing style. the same can be said of ppl like him out of muse who tries for the vocal acrobaits bollix.

and i'm no less a poptimist for it.

Re: Oh baby, this is too deep, too deep

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

when i did a singing course once, one week the class leader used some awful recent ( <2 years) cover version done by some r&b band (and i mean someone good, someone i like on other songs) and the entire class hated it. we'd lapped up pretty much every other song and singing style to that point (including Walk on By, and Ribbons in the Sky - Stevie Wonder) and nothing had irked us all quite so much.

Re: Oh baby, this is too deep, too deep

[andthatisthat.livejournal.com]

Sometimes 'We Belong Together' is played on a continuous loop in the changing rooms at my gym. Just that one song, OVER AND OVER AGAIN. This never happens with any other song, and I find it baffling.

LEST WE FORGET

[zenith.livejournal.com]

"Me 'n' Mariah
Go back like babies with pacifiers"

Thus claimed Ol' Dirty Bastard on 'Fantasy'. He was, of course, lying.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Where is that song with her and Busta? What little I can garner from the work-approved internet suggests that it was called "I know what you want" (Though obviously it's the one that goes "Baby if you give it to me, I'll give it to you...")

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes! I think I thought I hated it at the time but I heart it right now. Presumably not here cos it was billed as Busta ft Mariah not the other way round.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes. When we do a Busta canon she'll be in there.

Cool! Busta canon!

I was deliberating whether to include the Whitney one as I was planning on doing Whitters for Diva Canon #2 innit!

Busta canon yes plz OR better still a Rough Guide

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

By coinkydink I revived this ILM thread (http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=2323619) today but have only gotten 1x taker so far. So plz post there ppl or let's start a poptimists discussion of Busta. Thanks!

mariah is totally a poptimist touchstone

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

plus also she performed at live8 with a CHOIR OF PYGMIES!!

MAKE DOCHERTY HISTORY ect ectz

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I didn't know I liked Mariah 'til just now!

Coles and Clivilles (sp?)

[koganbot]

If you haven't heard "Make It Happen," you must! It shimmies, it shakes, it rocks, it explodes.

Remixes

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

She's had some stonking remixes done over the years - in fact I think in many cases the remixes are better than the originals and her warbling often sits better in the context of some dancefloor beats. The Morales mixes of Fantasy and Dreamlover are especially good - The Fantasy one is a good ten minutes long and is like about four records in one

[koganbot]

Also, I recommend "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" (not on the list). It's aching to be a country song.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Covering Def Leppard? I feel like I heard this, but strangely I can't hear what can only be a remarkable song in my head. (Although that may be because Pandora is playing me The Carpenters' "Hurting Each Other" right now.)

[koganbot]

Yes, 'twas the Leppard song. Mariah's version came and went without anybody who wasn't Swiss noticing (went Top 30 in Switzerland, bombed everywhere else; I think the assumption was that she was now terrible and could be ignored though I don't see where she was wasn't as good as when she romped back up the charts two years later). She's quiet for most of the song, but you feel the latent power in her quietness; as you'd expect, she eventually sets off skyrockets, but they're really quite gorgeous. I always heard a lot of feeling in her acrobatics (whereas I heard no feeling in Whitney's), don't think her singing is stupid at all. Wish she hadn't tended to subdue herself in service of r&b moods starting around 1993. So here's a later track that reminds me of what I loved about her in the first place.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I did notice when compiling the poll that Ms Carey hasn't bothered releasing half her US singles in the UK.

[andthatisthat.livejournal.com]

Coming to this very late, but 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' is my favourite Xmas song ever, 'Fairytale of New York' be damned.

And 'Prisoner' off the first album is better than a lot of these singles.