Chris DeLine

For a while here, I’ve been feeling a bit bored with the current state of rock. I don’t mean that there’s not music out right now that I’m impressed with (The Raveonettes, White Stripes, Kaiser Chiefs, Sleater-Kinney and even Audioslave among others are all getting a lot of time on my speakers)…it’s just…I want more. Is there more out there, am I depriving myself of something that others are gladly exposing themselves to. With that question in mind I came about getting my “hands” on the latest release from Mariah Carey…and Kelly Clarkson (see post “Quick Look Album Reviews”).

To be honest, it has been a long time since I’ve really given pop music a try. Was I missing out on something that could enhance the time I spend with music on around the house? Operation: Kelly Clarkson didn’t fair so well…I did enjoy two of the songs on the album, however…the results were far from what I was looking for. That shouldn’t be the only example, I thought to myself, of outreach to the blossoming pop-music culture. Should I let a young, yet-to-mature, star-in-the-making artist influence my view on pop music? (and furthermore, shoud-I-keep-typing-in-this-matter-?) No! (to all of the above)

Mariah Carey “The Emancipation of Mimi”

Why was this album chosen over a vast catalogue of other current pop mega-stars?

1. It has been dominating the Billboard charts as of late
2. Mariah Carey is an established singer and from what I’ve read, has reinvented herself after the whole “Glitter” debocle
3. Usually, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and if nothing else, there’s hype on this album

Track 1 – It’s Like That: This seems like a good song for the clubs; a good beat and not too much of Carey’s over-the-top (there I go again) vocals (or hip hop shout outs…though there are a few “Let’s go now…here we go now…WHAA”s near the end. Rating = Acceptable

Tracks 2-14: Absolutely what I remembered from pop music. There is a shift from the “new” Mariah to the “classic” Mariah sound throughout the album, but it doesn’t get the juices flowing for me to be honest. I tried…Oh Lord, I tried. I don’t want to start cursing and calling the album many things that it might not be in all reality, but understand this…if Snoop Dogg performing on your album doesn’t keep it poppin’ (tha shorties callin’ it that these days?), God help you Mariah. Well, not “God” persay, but…no, I take that back, let me start over:

if Snoop Dogg performing on your album doesn’t keep it poppin’ (tha shorties callin’ it that these days?), it’s time to call it quits. And thanks to Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey, my short experiment in pop music has been more than enough for me to decide to call it quits in that area of audio-exploration.

[This post was first published by Culture Bully.]