Mariah: an essential purchase?
Mariah Carey is the Tim Buckley of the new millennium. An astonishing vocal range, an obsession with black music, and a tragic inability to function in the world their talent has forced them to inhabit. The list of hard core innovators and neglected old school stars that Mariah has sought out and credited should have her right up there with Missy Elliot, not stuck down there with Christina Aguilera. OK, her determination to beat the Lopezes and Britneys at their own game has left to her working too hard on her body rather than her body of work.
As with any Mariah LP, there are too many Whitney Houston moments to make Greatest Hits an essential purchase. But even without the crowning of her career - this year's greatest single Lover Boy - such Diva drama queenery is transcended by the delirious elation of the faster songs. And there are the first signs of the intelligence that would work to make the surreally supra-musical soundscapes of the cruelly neglected Glitter on songs from Rainbow, where she gets behind the desk as well as the mic. The small-print evidence is that the more control Mariah takes, the better her records become. And that makes her next album a classic. (The Age) Many thanks to Mariah Land.
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