★★★★★
So. Here it is: Mariah's New Album. (I'm pretty sure you'll get what I just did there.) I never have high hopes for a Mariah album. That's not because she can't sing or because she can't do a great album. It's because there is always a point in every single Mariah album post-2000 which leaves me thinking: Why, oh why? Mariah has the extremely annoying tendency to over-sing a song. If she doesn't do that, she devotes herself to a song that was absolutely pointless...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-07-08
★★★★★
Every pop star must, at some point, confront career mortality. For some, the end comes suddenly and without warning, while others experience a slow, bewildering decline into mediocrity. After two decades of nearly uninterrupted chart dominance, one figures that Mariah Carey has spent some of the last year dwelling on the end of her reign. Her 13th album, Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse, comes on the heels of her most trying period since the infamous Glitter bomb of 13 years ago...
- pitchfork.com
2014-06-16
★★★★★
Five years since Mariah Carey released an LP, the diva returns with her 13th studio album. The familiar vocal theatrics are present, as is a breathtakingly egotistical album title. But there's something that isn't sitting right with this album. It seems confused.
Even in its inception Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse had trouble finding its feet...
- www.musicomh.com
2014-06-10
★★★★★
June 2, 2014
On Mariah Carey's 14th studio album, stylistic cohesion is as elusive as the chanteuse herself. Here, R&B is less a static genre than a way to combine the best bits of hip-hop, disco and gospel. Highlights like the Wale-assisted dance jam "You Don't Know What to Do" and "Make It Look Good," where Carey glides over a warm beat reminiscent of Kanye West's soul-looping Chicago days, often raid two of three...
- www.rollingstone.com
2014-06-03
★★★★★
Available on: Def Jam Having watched the evolution of Mariah Carey's 14th studio album over the course of a painstaking three years - during which the cover art, title, release dates and numerous collaboration rumours have been leaked, confirmed and retracted - it's difficult to know what the chanteuse's fans might have expected from the record itself. Finally listening to Me. I Am Mariah.....
- www.factmag.com
2014-05-30
★★★★★
Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse (Universal)
Mariah Carey became a star thanks to power ballads showcasing her five-octave range. But over the past 15 years, her best material has been high-end R&B bursting with multi-tracked vocal work that used her playful runs and ad libs as tripped-out textures...
- www.nowtoronto.com
2014-05-30
★★★★★
Mariah Carey became a star thanks to power ballads showcasing her five-octave range. But over the past 15 years, her best material has been high-end R&B bursting with multi-tracked vocal work that used her playful runs and ad libs as tripped-out textures. That approach, combined with a breezy mix of gospel balladry (Cry), grimy beats (Meteoite, Dedicated), 70s funk and disco (Make It Look Good, You Don't Know What To Do) and bassy R&B (Thirsty, Faded), makes the pop diva's 14th release a fun...
- nowtoronto.com
2014-05-29
★★★★★
The more Mariah Carey promises to serve the truth straight up, the more crazy she reveals. And the more crazy she promises, the more unnervingly straightforward she becomes. Both phenomena were illustrated in her two most recent albums, Merry Christmas II You and Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. Her holiday set aimed to slot comfortably alongside its MOR Christmas predecessor, but in doing so exposed Carey's intrepidly regressive nature...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2014-05-26
★★★★★
In the nearly five years since Mariah Carey's last proper studio album, the singer has given birth to twins, served a stint on "American Idol," and reaffirmed her acting skills with a couple of films thankfully not called "Glitter II." She's also logged a ton of studio hours, and this, her 14th full-length, arrives after some three years of recording, numerous delays and at least one unintentionally hilarious discarded title, "The Art of Letting Go...
- www.billboard.com
2014-05-27