Mariah Carey more like Celine, less like Aretha
Some might still call it rhythm 'n' blues, but it's really the genre's hip-hop-influenced, weaned-on-pop grandchild that Mariah Carey offered to 7,000 fawning fans Thursday night at a suitably shrunken Bell Centre. As the multimillion-selling, statistic-breaking singer proved one more time, R&B might have become more of a brand name than a meaningful style.
At its best, Carey's music is infectious and cannily persuasive enough to do the form justice. Even after 13 years, you'd have to be a hopeless purist not to be seduced by Always Be My Baby, which was mostly delivered as Carey reclined invitingly in a love seat. And if the hook in Obsessed or the sweet, anthemic We Belong Together don't do anything at all for you, maybe you're just not being fair. Not to forget Touch My Body, an irresistibly catchy song, effective even without the video antics of 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer.
But at its worst, well, God help us. Mawkish muck like the dreadful Hero, which closed the concert, or the over-emoting in the inspirational but uninspired ballad Fly Like A Bird place Carey more in Céline Dion territory than in Aretha country.
Yet maybe that chasm is not as great as we assume. Sure, Carey is a diva. But so is Aretha, who, for all her brilliance, really spawned all the vocal excess of this generation of R&B singers. Carey even had the sense of humour to playfully send up her image Thursday night, after Always Be My Baby, by having two flunkies come out to dab her face and touch up her hair. "Wouldn't you do the same if you were me?" she asked, to cheers. The star and the little people is, as always, the operative dynamic in a Carey concert.
Incidentally, it's hard to figure out why the on-stage freshening up would have been needed, even in jest. Carey is not what one would call an energetic performer: finger waves and slinky hand gestures are about it. Her dancers - numbering between three and 10, depending on song requirements - shouldered most of the physicality and visuals.
Should we chalk it up to fatigue? Starting a full hour after she was scheduled to go on, Carey waited a few numbers before apologizing and explaining that she had been up late shooting a video to raise funds for Haiti and got little sleep. The audience members - pretty soldily in the thirtysomething range - quickly forgave the fact that they would lose an hour's sleep themselves and showered her with love.
If you knock off about 15 minutes total Carey spent off stage for a costume change, she performed for about 70 minutes. With top ticket prices reaching $130 plus extras, it wouldn't be unfair to raise the question of value for money. But Carey's fans answered it with adoration. And we didn't come to argue. (The Montreal Gazette)
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