 Mariah Carey Paradoxically, the sluttier Mariah Carey gets, the more artistically ambitious she gets. I think this might be a rare case of someone genuinely reaching her potential by being herself, and for some reason that entails cheesecake marketing. Don't get me wrong, I'm appreciating the fact that the cover art for her CDs is getting progressively more cartoonishly sexy. Rainbow even features a fold-out poster that is as vain as anything I've seen since The Artist's ass-crackin' bedroom shots on the 1999 album sleeves. I can see why so many people hate her instantly, regardless of the music. I can even see why people hate her instantly purely based on the music. In the love-her-or-hate-her dichotomy, I fall squarely into the love-her category; I think she's fabulous, and the larger-than-life image that she continues to develop is both hilarious and totally appropriate. Ever since Daydream, her whole scope, artistically and in her marketing, has ascended to a really huge level. I have utter faith in Mariah. Still, even I had to laugh out loud when I first picked up this CD and beheld its cheesy-yet-perfect cover, with an exceedingly scantily-clad Mariah wearing a tank-top with rainbow striping, in front of a rainbow backdrop so that the rainbow is completed by the image on her shirt. The gay angle is so upfront, and yet so is the innocent angle, and yet so is the seedy angle, and yet so is the vainglorious angle. Mariah is more in her own world than I am in mine. Maybe I should start wearing more revealing clothing and my record reviews will shoot to #1.
Um, on what chart is that supposed to happen? Who cares. Anyway, Rainbow is Mariah's R&B concept album about the dissolution of her marriage and her finding new love, always believing in herself because she's got something special inside her and she's a rainbow. Or something like that. Actually, I overstate the simplicity of it – she's a really good songwriter, and you wouldn't always know it because her hooks and grooves are so damn good – like in the single "Heartbreaker," she uses the words "euphoric" and "relinquish" – totally inconspicuously and perfectly. Not everything on the album measures up to the standard set by that single, which is fantastic – it's included here also as a remix. The weaker moments are probably the two "No Scrubs" knockoffs, "How Much" and "X-Girlfriend," both decent enough but pretty derivative. She's always better on the ballads, and the great ones here are "Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)" and "Petals," both of which bring out the deeper issues she's dealing with in this album. The disc is actually pretty deep, really very honest and direct, which is not common for a pop artist as big as Mariah. The album it most compares to (aside from, say, Daydream and Butterfly, which are the two precedents in the formula she's been following for five years or so) is probably The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson – it's not as accomplished as that album is, but it's still pretty remarkable and personal. The biggest drawback is the hip-hop element, which works well in some places, but in others just seems gratuitous (the Snoop Dogg contribution to "Crybaby" springs readily to mind). The strong moments are very damn affecting – "Petals," which is as naked a thing as she's ever recorded, a very honest song and a great one, followed by the brief ballad "Rainbow," which brings in the trademark self-help motif that is integral to Mariah's thing – see also "Hero" and any number of her "You have something special inside of you, too" type songs. Which I'm a sucker for, by the way. "Thank God I Found You" is a great song, and makes even more sense in the context of the album (it closes the disc) than as a single. A cover of "Against All Odds" continues the tradition of a big power ballad cover for each album – this one is better than "Open Arms" off Daydream, though not as cool as "The Beautiful Ones" from Butterfly. When Mariah covers songs, it's glorious in many ways but also unsurprising, since you can kind of picture how it's going to sound before you hear it, and then it's exactly as you pictured it. That doesn't detract from the performance, really, but it may be that she sings so well that there's no more hoops to jump through. And for the record, all pundits who refer to her high-end screaming as being intolerable are reminded that she uses that very sparingly and it's really pretty amazing, showy as it is. You're just jealous, like you are of me and my success in the record-reviewing world. Rainbow isn't quite as good as the previous two albums, but it's just a tiny bit shy of that standard. I'd love to see her make a record even more honest than this one. The R&B stuff is great, and heaven knows I like to get busy, but her songwriting has become so good and so personal that it'd be awesome for her to shatter all expectations with a truly bold and revealing album. Certainly she has no problem with that in terms of clothing.
Review by Donna Dampon |
