You would never know Mariah Carey had been nominated for six Grammy Awards after listening to her new album E=MC^2. In fact, there isn’t much to say about this monotonous disaster other than this: The album is nowhere near as brilliant as Einstein’s legendary formula.
Seven years after her meltdown, Mariah Carey fans were given false hopes for this CD after U.S. radios released her single “Touch My Body” in February. Sadly, the album is similar to that of a playlist at a middle school dance; the beats are all the same, and — what’s worse — they’re all mid-tempo, making everyone confused as to whether they should be slow dancing or grinding the night away.
She opens E=MC^2 with “Migrate.” On this song — which features the infamous T-Pain — Mariah sings of how all the men love her and how she will have to migrate with them “From the party to the after party,” providing just the first of many overdone R&B innuendos.
Carey boosts her ego even further with “Touch My Body,” “Cruise Control” and “I’m That Chick,” singing about boys lovin’ girls — well, specifically boys loving her — and vice-versa. However, the only song that manages to have a semi-respectable beat in this trio is “I’m That Chick,” which gives listeners the impression that they have regressed to the days of disco.
Songs “I Stay in Love,” “Love Story” and “For the Record” are slow and typical of a mid-’90s artist — poor lyrics, repetitive beats and too much hype. And if it wasn’t easy enough to tell from their titles, these tunes are, once again, about love and Carey’s apparent commitment to men.
Similarly, “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time” sports the same theme but does so in a Mariah Carey-turns-Jamaican fashion, and she makes sure to carry this Jamaican theme into her lyrics as well. This is the most upbeat song out of the entire album — but that doesn’t say much.
Carey decides that there is too much talk about love and herself in this album thus far, so she offers “Last Kiss,” “Thanx 4 Nothin'” — yes, I am spelling these correctly — and “O.O.C.” to bring down the mood a bit and sing instead about break-ups. For the cultured folk out there, “O.O.C.” includes a touch of the Spanish and French languages. Carey sings, “Te quiero mucho Papi/ Je ne sais pas mais c’est la vie.” For those of you unable to decipher this doozy of a phrase, it means “I love Papi a lot/ I don’t know but that’s life.” Deep, ain’t it?
To conclude a dull album, Carey thought a piano ballad would be a great way for her audience to remember how “great” her CD is. Yet another slow song with lulling gospel overtones, Carey changes it up by including Bible verses from the Book of Proverbs, John, Philippians and Psalms in “I Wish You Well.”
The only positive thing that comes out of this mess of a record is that people who grew up in the ’90s can sit back and remember the good ol’ days — and then proceed to realize why everyone and their neighbors told us to turn off that god-awful music.
1 out 5 stars
