Ever since my early adolescent years,there’s always been a part of me that really wanted to truly appreciate the music of Mariah Carey. She tended to view her multi octave vocals as an instrumental element and did embrace strong musical values. Trouble was she seemed to all too easily embrace the surface level “R&B diva” mentality a bit too readily on occasion. Sometimes the imagery surrounding her was such a turn off,I tuned out her talents. In recent years Mariah has has begun to change all that. Especially after a very genuine marriage to singer/comedian Nick Cannon and having delivered two fraternal twins a few years back. We’ve seen in history family and childbirth enhanced the creative output of Stevie Wonder,Sly Stone and Prince. After six years of dealing with marriage and child rearing? Mariah stepped back into the recording studio and released a new album Me.I Am Mariah…The Elusive Chartreuse ,one that shows an enormously varied stylistic and very gospel/soul/funk based depth. The first song that caught my ear on it was “Meteorite”.
The song starts out with a video game style electronic effect over which Mariah remarks about Andy Warhol’s remarks that in the future,everything will be famous for fifteen minutes. Than this steady,fast tempo’d Afro-Latin percussion part kicks in along with a series of dynamic,spacey synthesized keyboards playing parallel counter melodies. On each refrain there is a big band muted trumpet that again adds another counter melody for…an instrumental sound pastiche that does indeed bring to mind the imagery of meteorites shooting across the cosmos. Mariah’s voice is featured here in her lower vocal towns-very much an overdubbed symphony of them much in the Marvin Gaye tradition. One voice is singing that sampled/cut up style techno type part,the other is a drawling voice singing the refrain and Mariah’s lowest gospel/soul belt singing the chorus. Lyrically she uses the age of metaphor of the “shinning star” to describe the “musical star” with very funk/disco era lyrical imagery such as “As they watch you burn up,turn up,turnt up all the way”.
Over the years I’ve heard many different types of Hi NRG techno dance songs-mostly all of a very derivative piece. This particular song not only brings to mind many of the best qualities of acid house music. But this also embraces some fascinating and somewhat under explored musical directions from when the disco era came to a direct halt. The big band muted trumpets have the flavor of the electro swing movement,which in itself owes to the big band styled disco records of Dr.Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band and Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra. Also Mariah’s assertion of fame as a source of spiritual guidance through connecting with a larger audience adds some hope and imagination to today’s often more pensively cynical viewpoints on achieving success. Above all? The steady house rhythms are very fast and funky poly-rhythms. And although the song has no discernible bass line? That strong percussive rhythm gives the song all the bottom it would ever need to seriously groove-which it does. Its wonderful to see Mariah Carey,a biracial singer who chose the soul spectrum of music from which to create,has embraced elements of the Afro-futurist funk/disco/dance ethic in order to expand her grooves.
* For my full Amazon review of Mariah Carey’s new album,follow the link below:
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