Word: mariah
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Mariah as Sharon Stone. Where Mariah falls down so dispiritingly is in so consistently forgetting that Less can be More. Forget for a moment that an artist this established should not need a bare midriff to keep moving units (so to speak). Her one-album-a-year regimen keeps her fans happy, but might quality control not improve through a little more discipline...
...Mariah as Melissa Etheridge. Worse, many songs on Butterfly offer minimal accent on the same lamentable themes of self-objectification ("I wanna be your babydoll"), self-abdication ("You can have me when you want me") and self-sacrifice ("I'd risk my life to feel/Your body next to mine"). Few women in music mention themselves so frequently only to marginalize themselves so cruelly. Indeed, Butterfly starts to sound whiny at best, and a lot like masochistic masturbation at its worst. Stand up for yourself, Mariah. And put some clothes...
...Mariah as Drew Barrymore. A surprisingly lovely track on Butterfly is "Close My Eyes," a hushed, low-register meditation on (believe it!) her own immaturity and poor self-image. Scary how remembering a messy childhood can force spareness, honesty, even eloquence on an unlikely source. She describes the "woman-child" she feels "falling inside," and the chorus acknowledges, "Still I feel like a child when I look at the moon/Maybe I grew up a little too soon...
...Mariah as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Just kidding...
...Mariah as Erykah Badu. The other track that stands out on Butterfly-and not just because so much of the album is monotonous tripe-is a jazzy novelty called "The Roof," essentially a narrative description of a late night rendezvous above a city sky-line. Like Badu, D'Angelo and other artists in the rising Black Bohemian movement, Mariah shows a willingness to glide through her whole vocal range, layer her melodies and isolate a specific moment of romantic rapture. The idiosyncratic rhymes and loose rhythm track help make the song as unique and attention-getting as most...