With grim predictability, Mariah Carey, back with a new album, is also making her presence felt in the diabolical-diva columns of the trash mags. But this record deserves to be judged on its contents, not tittle-tattle about alleged tantrums. So, here goes: it's perfectly serviceable; and, by and large, an absolute stinker. The paucity of imagination that leads corporate R&B to decide that the only way of distancing Carey from her crazed-coloratura, big-balladry past is to steer her towards sub-Kelis, minimalist studio trickery beggars belief. With two exceptions (the bootylicious It's Like That and the smoky Stay the Night), the album is a sorry mess of formulaic beats and self-obsessed, product-placement lyrics, which should, more accurately, have been titled the Emancipation of Me! Me!
Def