There is no way that any record could ever live up to the weight of expectation that has surrounded this release. After the collapse of Mariah's eleventy-billion dollar deal with Virgin, the rumours she was paid 20 million quid just to go away, and her humungous new deal with Universal, anything less than the second coming would be a let-down.
Her last project, the 'Glitter' film and soundtrack, was described by one reviewer as being "the pop equivalent of Chernobyl". Honestly, even if 'Charmbracelet' was awful, it couldn't possibly have been 'that' bad. And so, slightly depressingly, the reality is as expected. Carey's latest is a plodding collection of ballads carefully designed to show-off her jaw-dropping vocal range to the fullest. That voice leaps, swoops, soars, pirouettes, skidaddles, glides and eventually comes down to land through multiple octaves on the slightest pretext during every single track. The songs are as forgettable as usual, the performances far more animated and involved than the material merits. So what's new?
But perhaps the biggest disappointment is that Carey's new label haven't coaxed her into making the sort of streetwise record she has always been capable of. 'You Got Me' features Jay-Z and is produced by Just Blaze, the master of the speeded-up soul sample, and suggests one possible fruitful new direction for Carey to explore, if she ever intends to make a vaguely progressive record in the future. Jermaine Dupri's 'You Had Your Chance'
samples the same Leon Hayward record Dr Dre made 'Ain't Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang' out of a decade ago, while 'Irresistible' is a pointless remake of Ice Cube's 'You Know How We Do'. The rest? Mush.
She used to take risks, but 'Charmbracelet' is conservative, unadventurous and uninspiring; and, while it's understandable that simply to make another record marks a triumph of sorts, it's impossible to admire Mariah to the degree that her talent ought to merit.
