I worry that some of my comments earlier about Mariah Carey's cover of "One More Try" might make it sound like I don't give Mariah Carey her proper respect, so let's get one thing clear right off the bat. I love Mariah Carey.
I didn't live through Peak Whitney Houston, so I can say in good conscience that I've never before or since experienced anything like Peak Mariah Carey. It's like how I got into basketball and hockey when Jordan and Gretzky were doing their thing, so I just figured there was always someone like that around. I think that, for instance, Beyonce transcends Mariah Carey's level of stardom, but the music's not quite the same, perhaps just because we don't live in a time of plenty and innocence like we did in the 1990s anymore.
Because it's not just that Mariah Carey (who's like the opposite of Beyonce in that she's so famous she needs both of her names) could get from one end of her five-octave range to the other in a beat or two, though that's a lot of what made her great. It's the capacity for unbridled joy that came through in most of her music, even the ballads and sadder songs. For instance, "Heartbreaker" is about trying to get over a worthless sack of shit boyfriend--Beyonce would not attack the same subject so glibly--and it's all dance-poppy. Like, everything's bright and trivial and low-stakes in the escapist world of Peak Mariah Carey.
Which makes sense, because imagine being able to sing like that. How could you possibly feel like the world is anything but a place of optimism and beauty and magical, plane-transcending key changes? If you're a human accordion like Elliott Smith, you're going to be sad and sweaty, but if you're a human clarinet like Mariah Carey, you're going to be happy and it'll never occur to you that someone will not always be your baby.
