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.
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.
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.
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.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 02:04 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2006-06-21 03:39 pm (UTC)Re: Have people bought back in after the breakdown
Date: 2006-06-21 04:05 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 06:13 pm (UTC)*"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.