Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 14/04/08
Label: Def Jam / Mercury

Mariah Carey is famous for many things, but until now, being depressing wasn't one of them. Of course, she's always had a certain weepy sentimentality about her. Cut through the sass and hip hop ambitions and ultimately, she's a hopeless romantic singing about love conquering all and heartbreak with happy endings. Lately though, there's been a darker undercurrent to her girlie daydreams, and if 2005's "The Emancipation Of Mimi" was Mariah setting her feelings free, "E=MC2" finds her having a damn good wallow in them.

Obviously we're not talking wrist-slitting here. It's still very much a Mariah album - and a very slick and stylish one - with all the sweetness and swagger that entails. But there's no mistaking the melancholy which colours everything, even the normally light and breezy counterpoints to her omni-present ballads. But floaty first single "Touch My Body" and mid-tempo tear-jerker "Last Kiss" are about as close as love comes to saving the day this time around.

Everywhere else she's all about the bitterness of realising that pain is all that's left. "Thanx For Nothin'"'s cold sway is typical of "E=MC2"'s resentment, with not even a hint of sunshine to brighten her gloom. And while the hazy ghetto funk of "O.O.C" initially promises relief, a depressed flute loop quickly sucks all the jauntiness from its slinky strut, leaving her like J. Lo on downers. Similarly, "Side Effects" promises one thing (dank club menace) and delivers another (hurt and anguish) as she declares, with a sincerity you wouldn't doubt: "I kept my tears inside, 'cause I knew if I started I'd keep crying for the rest of my life".

With slow jam "For The Record" and lighter-friendly ballad "Bye Bye" turning the dial all the way up to inconsolable, "E=MC2" is the musical equivalent of a night out with the recently dumped - while there are attempts at fun, invariably, everything ends in tears. No barrel of laughs, then. What it is though is unexpectedly affecting. Mariah's sadness is real in a way that her flirty love never is and the production, courtesy of Jermaine Dupri, Stargate, Scott Storch, Will.I.Am and Tricky "Umbrella" Stewart comes with a class Mariah's always deserved, yet rarely got.

Coupled with her new-found depth and honesty, the net result is a monumental break-up album. Clearly the carefree pop strumpet who skipped through the "Dream Lover" video has all but disappeared, replaced instead by one who, on this record at least, always seems to be putting a brave face on it. If she can come out the other side with this load significantly lightened but her believability intact, Mariah Carey's finest hour may well still be ahead of her.

    by Dan Gennoe