| Wednesday 28 January 2009 |
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Mariah Carey starts work on next LP with The-Dream
The-Dream has been busy putting the finishing touches on his next album, Love or Hate, which is tentatively due March 3 on Def Jam. But the award-winning songwriter says he's up for double duty this year: He also wants to helm Mariah Carey's next album. The pair teamed up to work on material last week.
"I'm trying to do the whole thing," The-Dream told DJ Skee on Sunday during an interview on Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM. The pair have worked together in the past. The-Dream penned her hit "Touch My Body", from Carey's last album, E=MC2; his studio partner Tricky Stewart produced the track. According to The-Dream, the working title of Carey's next album is MC3.
The new Mrs. Cannon's most recent studio album arrived less than a year ago, but The-Dream thinks the songstress shouldn't let too much time pass before her next project. "I love her, she's everything," he said of Carey. "She's down, she's cool, she gets it. You think she's this big, but she gets it. She's all the way in there. I told her we need to get back in there. It's not like it used to be where you can wait to come out with an album. I'm like, 'Let's go, let's do it!' And she's up for it."
While the direction of Mariah's next LP hasn't been determined yet, The-Dream said he wouldn't want to take her too far from what she's recorded in the past. He explained Carey has little latitude for failure because of her successful track record; she was the top-selling female artist of the 1990s. For that reason, alone, The-Dream said the plan is to focus on her past hits for inspiration.
"It's like we're trying to make a greatest hits without using the greatest hits," he said. Speaking of which, last week, Carey released an actual greatest-hits project, titled The Ballads. The album includes a number of the singer's notable soft songs, including "Hero", which she dedicated to President Barack Obama at the Neighborhood Ball, where her husband Nick Cannon was the DJ.
The singer - who recently made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival with her movie "Push" - may be known for a diva-like reputation, but she's gone on record saying how much she enjoys collaborating with other songwriters like The-Dream.
"Sometimes it's perhaps a co-writer, which you can definitely feed off that other person's energy or where they're coming from, and go back and forth with different ideas," Carey said in a statement. "That's a process that really inspires me and that I really love." (MTV News)
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