ALBUM REVIEW : MARIAH CAREY - E=MC2 (English)
Mariah Carey has gone a long way trying to find herself, and in a way re-define herself in her music career. It wasn't an easy journey for sure, especially when she has initially carved such a good impression with her girl-next-door image during her debut album-Emotions-Music Box-Daydream days, and have spawned so many ballad & pop hits from those albums such as Hero, Without You, Dreamlover, Always Be My Baby, One Sweet Day, Someday and Vision Of Love. Many fans turned away when Mariah started to embrace her overtly sexier side and ventured into more hip-hop and R&B genre during her Butterfly-Rainbow-Charmbracelet period. Even I felt terribly disappointed with her at that point. Despite still having garnished a few number one hits from those albums like Honey, Thank God I Found You and My All, Mariah definitely developed a much negative reputation with her much sexier, flesh-revealing image. Her career dipped when she decided to act and produced the soundtrack Glitter.
Mariah finally earned her come-back with The Emancipation Of Mimi, and I for one liked it. Her hit single We Belong Together stayed at Billboard's number one for fourteen straight weeks. It also became 2005's best selling album in US, besides earning her 3 Grammies in the same year.
E=MC2 becomes the most anticipated album of 2008 after such a huge success of The Emancipation Of Mimi. Verdict? I loved it. In fact, I liked it even more than TEOM. I suppose after the long journey of re-defining her music, Mariah has finally found the recipe that worked. Her hip-hop tunes finally sounded great, especially the track titled Bye Bye, which is my favourite in the album. Watch the video above for Mariah's superb performance of the song during American Idol. Other tracks that I like include I Stay In Love, For The Record, Thanx 4 Nothin', I'll Be Loving U Long Time, Last Kiss and I'm That Chick. Her first single Touch My Body has reached number one at the Billboard charts, giving Mariah her 18th number one, surpassing Elvis, and now only behind The Beatles for the most number one Billboard hits. The album currently sits at number one as well in the Billboard 200, giving her a tie with Madonna and Janet Jackson, at the 2nd place for having the most number one albums, just behind Barbara Streisand.
Really happy with this album, Mariah Carey's back, and she's here to stay on!
Rating : A-
Download Mariah's Bye Bye here (link for download will only be available for 7 days from 25 April 2008)
]]>