Women we love: Mariah Carey

I, uh, bought the new Mariah Carey album on iTunes a few days ago, and, um, I love it. No more skanky Mariah with a voice like an asthmatic in a coal mine; she seems to have gotten her mojo back, after a series of shitty albums with names like "Rainbow," "Glitter," "Charmbracelet," "Lollipop," and "Femininehygieneproduct." I have a long history with this woman. I remember receiving her eponymous debut cassette tape way back in the early nineties, and I religiously purchased her albums for the next seven years. Then she felt the need to compete with Britney Spears and her ilk, leading to the sad spectacle of a thirty-five year-old woman in pigtails and baby tees. What happened to the Puerto-rican looking Long Islander the nation fell in love with?

Well, one shitty movie later, looks like we're all back on board. Honestly, her voice sounds pretty awesome and her songwriting is on point. For some reason I've always found her to be a sympathetic figure - through the failed marriage, adult contemporary sugar ballads, ludicrous dye jobs, and hip-hop ho showdowns. I don't know, she seems kind of smart and funny at times. And she has a musky speaking voice that I like. Anyways, the new album is good - solid r&b, awesome production, ridiculous rhythms and syncopation, nice range. As I've been listening to it and singing along at points, I realize that I sort of learned to sing from her, in that when I try to add my own little M-Killa-D ad-libs to the songs, it sounds like what she's doing anyway. I guess she was a bigger influence than I realized.

Anyhow, Mariah: welcome back. As you wrote so profoundly, "them chickens is ash and [you're] lotion."