MARIAH LAW: part showgirls

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Eh, she's somehow managed to totally eff up the singles from E=MC2 (it is really beyond me how you can even do that with an album which has a surfeit of precision-tooled singles but w/vs) but maybe the gayest video ever will help 'I Stay In Love', which is the most shameless ballad I've heard in an age. That piano line is ridiculous. I love the way that even in the middle of all this schmaltz Mimi still finds time to break it down with "what I wanna do / is ride shotgun next to you".

So, let's recap all the amazing tracks which were inexplicably never made singles off this album: 'Migrate', 'I'm That Chick', 'Side Effects', 'Cruise Control', 'OOC', 'For The Record'. Oh, Mimi. FAIL. Still my second favourite album of the year, mind.

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I still haven't heard this album. :/ The only Mariah Carey song I like is 'We Belong Together;' should I bother?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Definitely! It's more of a summer album for me, haven't played it since the cold snap hit, but it sounds almost precision-engineered to be good.

Also I've just finished listening to the Gang Gang Dance album and it strikes me as very much your thing, tangled thickets of rhythm and riffs.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I shall get on the torrent-o-matic then!

[weasel-seeker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this has been ridiculous. Album of the summer, hands down.

Singles picks should have been Touch My Body, Side Effects, Migrate, I'm That Chick and Cruise Control. If you need a ballad, sub in Stay in Love, I guess, but Side Effects is almost a We Belong Together ballad hyped up on crunk juice.

[pointyelbow.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. That we didn't hear "Side Effects", "Migrate", and "Cruise Control" on the radio all summer is a huge shame. I get her wanting to release "Bye Bye", which I happen to like a whole lot, but then she needed to release the club tracks to make the charts.

[pointyelbow.livejournal.com]

We're also missing out on a bunch of potentially great remixes.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I like 'Bye Bye' too, but have soured on it slightly as I blame it for the entire singles campaign debacle.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

OK I am way behind on this obv but have just listened to the album all the way through and WHAT THE FVCK, is that an N.W.A answer record tagged on the end there?

Otherwise man, that is one big fluffy comforting duvet of an album - her breathy backing vocals wrapped round your head like she's trying to smother you with a big pillow with her face on it.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Hang on what? The last track on the album proper is 'I Wish You Well' which is a giganto gospel piano ballad in which Mimi QUOTES THE BIBLE, and I have a throwaway upbeat track called 'Heat' as well - I don't think either of these are NWA answer records! Wikipedia says there is another bonus track called '4real 4real' though, is that it? (Haha, that Wikipedia page is the third google result for E=MC2.)

One of the many things I love about the album is that virtually every song has a ridiculous Mariahism on it: the Jamaican accent on 'Cruise Control' (even now the fact that she says "ting" and "di gyals pon di block" makes me giggle), "them other regularities - they can't compete with MC!" on 'For The Record'. And 'I'm That Chick' which is entirely made out of Mariahisms. "I brings that levity"!!!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Dude compare 'Heat' with this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwUO_NHAjQA) - ok not quite an 'answer', more of a 'channelling'.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh bloody hell of course - idiot me, it's cuz I haven't listened to 'Heat' much at all.

Though the Wikipedia trail seems to suggest that Mariah's just sampled the same track that NWA sampled - Brass Construction's 'The Message (Inspiration)' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_RN0acBet4) - as they're given co-writing credits on 'Heat'.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yep, probably will.i.am's magpie in action again, but she DEFINITELY makes plenty of references to being 'the one' and getting her hair done etc.