Begin as You Mean to Go On

Lambs: Happy 2020!

The year is off to a great start for me and I intend to rededicate myself to the blog this year. At least a post a month seems reasonable, right? I mean, at least! I have so much to bestow uponst thou.

Mariah is having an epic 2020. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" went to number one after TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, and she also became the first artist to have a number one on Billboard's Hot 100 in FOUR DECADES: the 90s, 00s, 10s, and 20s. My girl is flowing and growing.

But as longtime (lol) readers will realize, this isn't a blog about MC news but rather a meandering, free associative, interdisciplinary exploration of her oeuvre. With that in mind, I'd like to relate a little anecdote from earlier this week.

As many of you may know, I have a Mariah Spotify playlist I'm rather proud of (dm me for the link). Clocking in at six hours and 52 minutes, it's a carefully curated musical document containing only her best works (sadly Glitter is not currently on Spotify so gems like "Reflections" and "If We" are absent. May this please manifest in 2020). As I was driving along, I was treated to one of my faves, "Underneath the Stars."

Was there a better moment in 1995 than when MC sang:

And I lay in bed all night and I was

Drifting, drifting, drifting, drifting

There was not.

And then, through some cosmic intervention, the playlist gifted me "Angel (the prelude)" (touched upon lightly in this post).

Separated by 12 years, the two tracks offer an amazingly undiluted artistic vision, consistency of tone, appeal to our ethereal souls, habitation among the stuff of cloud wisps, vocalization of the essence of starlight -- etc etc. They are not the same; rather they call to each other over the years and hear an echoing response.

It's tempting to call this simply a maturation/evolution of style. Case in point: Piet Mondrian's "The Gray Tree" from 1912, compared to his famous "Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue" from 1942.

The early work clearly shows the Cubist struggle Mondrian was exploring as he applied the style to representation, a struggle that dissolved in the purity of the later abstractions. I would argue that the distinction between an artist's maturation and the process at work in the above Mariah comparison is real, and important. I posit that Mariah's work from Daydream onwards (pre-Daydream was unfortunately overly Mottola-controlled ("Mottrolla"? Heh.)) is less an evolution than a series of episodes of completed arrival, form fully expressed. There is no "forward motion" in this oeuvre, unless we subscribe to the Gregorian calendar and a linear concept of time (sooooo 2015). Rather there are continued mature explorations of expression. Glitter is as perfect as Charmbracelet  as Me. I am Mariah. 

In a nod to Truman Capote, Mariah's post-1995 body of work can be heard as One Voice, Many Rooms. Happy new year, and here's to more fully-fledged MC masterworks this year.

Daydream: Best and...Not Best

Lambs! I'm back with an exciting new blogging adventure. This is the first post in what will, over time, address each one of MC's studio albums (well, maybe not the Christmas ones, although I'll be more seasonal-minded in a few months) and reveal my opinion on the best track and the "not best" (can't say worst; just can't) from each.

Thanks to a nifty website called Random Thing Picker, 1995's classic Daydream has been selected as the first album for examination!

Mariah folklore would have us believe that Daydream saw our heroine wriggling out from under then-husband and Sony exec Tommy Mottola's thumb as she bravely sailed into uncharted waters with a new hip-hop tinged sound that many old white men in the music biz worried would alienate fans. Hard to believe now, but there are those who wanted Mariah to sing songs such as the dreadful "Hero" forever. Listening to the album 20 years on, it's difficult to believe it caused any pearl-clutching whatsoever. "Fantasy," the track that included both the brilliant sample of Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" and a guest appearance by Ol' Dirty Bastard, has now been often imitated (never duplicated) by a thousand would-be pop stars who think they can throw a guest rap over some breathy vocals and recreate the magic. More interesting from an archaeological standpoint is "One Sweet Day," a duet with Boyz II Men, a black R&B group with some tight harmonies. Where has the black men's R&B group gone? Is there a place for it in today's musical landscape? Questions for another day.

So, on to this post's purpose. I'll start with Not Best; bad news first and so on. This dubious honor goes to "When I Saw You," a plodding and lyrically trite ballad that manages to bore despite a bridge that momentarily recaptures interest.

The problem here is the delivery of the monosyllabic chorus: "When , I, saw, you, when , I, saw, you, I, could, not, breathe, I, fell, so, deep." It sounds like a slog, and it needn't be.

So as we turn to "best," I would just mention that Daydream's best known songs like "Always Be My Baby," "One Sweet Day," and "Fantasy" are so ingrained in one's consciousness as to be impossible to approach objectively. It's like looking at your arm and thinking, is this a good arm? Futile. So, those songs weren't really up for best or not best in my decision.

Also, and perhaps I'm making a mistake here, but I don't take "Daydream Interlude (Fantasy Sweet Dub Mix)" seriously enough as a legitimate album track to consider its candidacy for a category either. I defy you to correct me.

To me, the standout track on Daydream is clearly "I Am Free." Never released as a single and clocking in at a paltry 3:11, this mid-album track might not garner that much attention upon first listen. But LAMBS. Listen to the passage from 1:50 to 2:25, as the voice, still in mint condition, soars, plunges, and rises again in an expression of perfect joy. Do you have chills? This short little gospel-inspired track packs such an unexpected wallop. And there are no frills -- no extravagant production, no excessive vocal tricks -- just the confidence of vocals in their prime. Enjoy!





Down the Rabbit Hole with "Fourth of July" and "Underneath the Stars"

Like every other patriot, I took the opportunity this past Friday to celebrate the 238th birthday of the American experiment by listening to Mims's cooing slow jam from 1997's Butterfly, "Fourth of July."



While generally pleasant, I have always found this tune to be relatively unmemorable. In fact, the only reason it ever comes to mind for me is the somewhat uncomfortably close resemblance it bears to a tune from Mims's previous 1995 album Daydream -- "Underneath the Stars." A superior song musically and vocally, and supposedly one of Mims's personal favorites (which is why it was included on the two-disc 2001 Greatest Hits compilation), "UTS" is undoubtedly the sonic predecessor of "Fourth of July."

Curious about the similarities between the two songs, I did a bit of googling and was unsurprised to learn that the songs shared a co-producer (other than Carey) -- Walter Afanasieff, a Grammy-winning songwriter and producer with whom Carey worked on her debut album through 1997's Butterfly. Incidentally, Afanasieff also co-produced one of Mims's biggest hits of all-time, "One Sweet Day." Perhaps thankfully, Jermaine Dupri pretty much took over the role of Mims's star co-producer after she rerouted her musical direction in the late 1990s, collaborating with her on 2005's "We Belong Together."

So, mystery solved. However, while I was on Butterfly's Wikipedia page (yeah yeah), I came across nothing less than a bombshell, readers: the collaborator on Butterfly's cover of Prince's "Beautiful Ones" -- one of the album's strongest tracks -- is no one less than SisQo, the man responsible for 1999's aural affront, "Thong Song." How? Why? I will be available for dialogue as we all struggle to regroup after this troubling revelation.



In closure, and with America in mind, I'd like to share this pic I found on Tumblr a few years ago:

The picture's caption reads as follows: 

Mariah Carey’s father is Afro-Venezuelan. Her grandfather’s name was Roberto Nuñez but he changed his surname to Carey in order to assimilate upon arrival to the US.

Mariah Carey would’ve been…. Mariah Nuñez. I wonder how that surname change would have altered the course of her career. 

Just some food for thought as we ponder today's vitriolic immigration debate and remember the immigrants (and of course the slaves) that built America's economy.