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USA Today
By Elysa Gardner, April 13, 2005
3.5 stars/4 stars
With her imitators all over radio and American Idol, it's sometimes hard to recall what pop-soul music sounded like before Carey came along. The diva herself remembers, though, as evidenced by the wistful, old-school vibe on Mine Again, Circles and other endearing new tunes. Breezy, playful tracks such as Say Somethin' (featuring Snoop Dogg) and Get Your Number (with Jermaine Dupri) prove the singer hasn't forsaken her passion for hip-hop. But it's the ballads and midtempo numbers that truly reflect the renewed confidence of a songbird who has taken her shots and kept on flying.
Rolling Stone
By Barry Walters, April 21, 2005
2.5 stars/5 stars
First off: Mariah Carey's ninth album, The Emancipation of Mimi, doesn't suck as comprehensively as 2001's Glitter or 2002's Charmbracelet. Those back-to-back flops suggested that her famous multioctave voice was shot, her judgment impaired and her decade-long pop dominance as over as the Nineties. On Mimi, the Neptunes, Kanye West and Jermaine Dupri deliver unimpeachable grooves, and there are no out-and-out disasters here.
But contrary to its claims, The Emancipation of Mimi doesn't free the diva from what constricts her: There aren't any great songs among Mimi's club tunes and pop-chart-conscious tracks, and Carey is still suffering from a serious crisis of confidence. The Neptunes tracks -- "Say Somethin'," with Snoop Dogg, and "To the Floor," featuring Nelly -- have beats that make you move, but the songs' pop hooks don't stick. Here and elsewhere, the thirty-five-year-old songbird employs the thin and airy warble she's used since the turn of the millennium with breathy, anonymous results. On Kanye West's "Stay the Night," she rides the opposite extreme, blaring and straining with a vengeance. West's low-rumbling smooth rhythms lay a comfy foundation, but Carey seems uncomfortably forced. She's upstaged on Dupri's "Get Your Number," where the Atlanta producer does Nelly better than Nelly himself while sampling Imagination's Eighties club classic "Just an Illusion"; at least here, though, Carey's belabored voice finds a pleasurable medium.
Still, on ballads like "Mine Again," she wails notes that don't need emphasizing, then whispers what would ordinarily be climactic phrases, and the outcome doesn't make emotional or musical sense. Carey seems to be past the worst in her career, but Mimi's A-list hitmakers don't bring her all the way back.
Entertainment Weekly
By Tom Sinclair, April 11, 2005
Grade: B
What's in a name? Mariah Carey is calling her 10th studio CD The Emancipation of Mimi. It's the sort of bold title that promises big changes, exciting sounds, a fresh outlook. Both the word emancipation and the sobriquet Mimi (a nickname used by friends and family) imply that Carey's latest will be soaringly free and intensely personal. Could those words also signal that this is the disc on which Carey throws caution to the wind and explores alien genres? Is this where her previously unsuspected love for artists like, say, Jimi Hendrix, the Smiths, or Pere Ubu finally rears its head?
Of course not. (Ah, but it's fun to dream, isn't it?) Our girl is attempting to extricate herself from the prolonged career slump that began with the abysmal failure of the Glitter soundtrack in 2001 and continued through 2002's Charmbracelet, and neither she nor her handlers are likely to take any crazy chances. (She's probably never heard of Pere Ubu anyway.) In fact, the superstar producers and guest artists on Emancipation (the Neptunes, Kanye West, Twista, Snoop Dogg, Nelly) are no less than the hottest — and most over-exposed — names in urban music.
If such a stacking of the deck seems predictable, it gets the job done: Every song on Emancipation showcases Carey's undeniable vocal strengths. Heavy on ballads and midtempo love songs, it always keeps at least one foot (more often both feet) planted firmly in comforting old-school diva soul. This is an R&B record for folks who think there hasn't been any good R&B since Minnie Riperton died.
Even the rappers are on their best behavior, with Snoop playing an amiable around-the-way lothario on ''Say Somethin''' and Twista motormouthing his way through ''One and Only'' (''Twista and Mariah/Together like a grip on a tire,'' he raps, and it must be admitted that Carey does a fair job of trying to keep up with him).
''It's Like That'' isn't the old Run-DMC song, but it's almost as cool, with Carey fantasizing about easing into a nightclub buzzed on Bacardi. ''No stress, no fights,'' she sings, making it sound like a trip to a vacation spa. ''To the Floor'' is another hooky dance-floor anthem that ought to get a party started (although it does sound like Nelly phoned his part in).
But the crux of the album is to be found in its heart-on-my-sleeve numbers. Perhaps the best of these is ''Fly Like a Bird,'' a veritable prayer that explicitly references God. ''Sometimes this life can be so cold/I pray you'll come and carry me home,'' Carey sings melismatically. ''Carry me higher, higher, higher.'' It's so moving that we'll resist the temptation to be crass and interpret the song as a plea for heightened record sales. Help from above is always welcome, but Emancipation sounds like it just might do fine all on its own.
VIBE
By Dimitri Ehrlich
Superior - 4 Vs/5Vs
Throughout her career, Mariah Carey has been a lot of things to a lot of people. But, from her early years as the ear-shattering, all-American princess to her most recent position as the queen of the rumor mill, Carey's overwhelming vocal ability and knack for crossing boundaries to appeal to a diverse hip pop and R&B audience have not changed. She's also unusually resilient, and her latest album - The Emancipation of Mimi - continues the public therapy that began not long after her hospitalization for "exhaustion" in 2001.
Mimi pulls Carey in two opposite directions. Most of the tracks find her paired with the hottest hip hop producers of the day; there, she exercises restraint and settles into a groove. But on the rest, she does what comes most naturally to her - belting to her heart's desire, perhaps to mollify those who don't care much for her detours into raunchier rap territory.
The first single, "It's Like That," is an aggressive, off-kilter joint with a harshly stiff beat, produced by Jermaine Dupri. Obviously, this is the kind of tune that's going to solidify her comeback to the MTV crowd. Carey's voice adds a thick layer of gloss to Dupri's heavy bass. Her phrasing is more staccato than ever, and her interplay with late-night New York radio personality Fatman Scoop on the outro gives this song a credible hip hop feel. A more typical R&B composition from Dupri is "We Belong Together," a broken-hearted lament for lost love. Here, Carey's vocals ride in and out of a kick-drum, finger-snap-driven track. The hip hop, slow-jam hybrid (a la Lil Jon's "Lovers & Friends"), combined with her bottle-breaking high notes, creates an appeal that will cut across generations.
Joints like the funky break-up song "Shake It Off" and the Twista-assisted street jam "One and Only" prove Carey?s continuing hip hop affinity. But her vocal pyrotechnics push the boundaries of that genre while keeping more conservative heads in the loop. And nothing on this album says that more than the Neptunes-produced "Say Somethin'," a musical oddity marked by strange instrumentation, weird melodic shifts, hectic drum patterns, and Carey's upper-octave doodles. As she coyly sings, "If it's worth your while, say something good to me," Snoop Dogg mutters about getting buckwild.
Meanwhile, "Mine Again" is sure to resonate with the old guard and give the new generation another Carey groove to emulate. The track starts out as a ballad ? just Carey, accompanied by an electric keyboard and a rhythmic vinyl sound ? then builds into a traditional gospel R&B song. It's a heartfelt performance that?s more emotionally honest than other songs here. The slightly jazzy "Fly Like A Bird" is another down-home production that's a cry for unconditional love. Its inspirational message allows Carey to fully exercise her vocal acrobatics, proving that she can still blow her army of imitators off a stage.
Although she botched that crazy, sexy, cool approach with her two previous efforts (Charmbracelet and Glitter), Mariah gets back to her winning formula with Mimi. Her yin and yang method, with its schizophrenic mix of the '80s and 21st-century hip hop, works wonders for Emancipation. So if she wants to continue brandishing her gift for over-the-top expression and capitalizing on savvy collaborations with today's hottest stars, she should go right ahead. Her fans are still craving it.
Billboard, April 16, 2005
"The Emancipation of Mimi" is Mariah Carey's most satisfying album since her 1997 collection, "Butterfly." The latter disc spawned multiple hits and has sold 3.7 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. "Mimi" has already notched a hit with "It's Like That," and a second single - the midtempo ballad "We Belong Together" - is ascending the charts. Carey's emancipation is drenched in hip-hop and old-school R&B ballads, and it smartly focuses on her strengths. While her voice has lost some of its power through the years, "Mimi" deftly showcases her still-considerable pipes with strong lyrics and slick production. In addition to the aforementioned singles, highlights include the Snoop Dogg-spiced thump of "Say Somethin'," the gorgeous ballads "Mine Again" and "Circles," the bouncy silliness of "Get Your Number" and gospel closer "Fly Like a Bird."
Slant Magazine
By Sal Cinquemani, 2005
3.5 stars/5 stars
Though she's been "emancipated" before (first with Butterfly, then with Charmbracelet, her first album recorded free of Sony's watchful eye), Mariah Carey claims she titled her new album The Emancipation Of Mimi because she finally feels free to be who she really is, no apologies. And who is Mariah Carey exactly? Like her peers (you know, 7th graders), Mariah is someone who wants to be popular. In fact, all she's ever really wanted is to be liked. "I discovered that my desire to make music came from the need to heal myself," she said recently. "My desire to become famous came from the need to feel worthy and accepted." And so, like her last few albums, Mimi can be split into two distinct parts: half of it catering to her misguided yet genuine passion for hip-hop and the other half attempting to recapture her more soul-oriented beginnings. It's unclear which segment nurtures her desire to heal herself and which makes her feel "worthy and accepted": Once determined to be embraced by the hip-hop community, Mariah now seems more interested in sating her dwindling pop contingent, though I'm sure she's torn between both—a position not unfamiliar to her.
Ironically, Mimi is Mariah's least personal album since the milquetoast Music Box, for which Tommy Mottola allegedly ordered her to tone down the vocal acrobatics, as if she weren't already as easy to swallow as vanilla ice cream. It wasn't until recently that the details of their marriage were revealed (Mariah kept her pocketbook by her side at all times, packed with everything she might need if and when the shit hit the fan). Of course, that day finally came—albeit with 40 giant suitcases—and while most were quick to point out that Mariah's conservative wardrobe was the first thing to go, she also curiously shifted from Marilyn Monroe-esque coyness, singing about being rescued by imaginary white knights ("Dreamlover," "Fantasy"), to Mae West-style come-hitherness, cooing "now you can finally have me, boys!" ("Honey," "Loverboy"). But despite her recent willingness to discuss her private life, Mimi is, for the most part, a party record, exemplified by its Jermaine Dupri-produced first single "It's Like That," in which Mimi celebrates her emancipation by arriving at the party already shit-faced: "I came to have a party/Open off that Bacardi…Purple taking me higher/I'm lifted and I like it."
In fact, Mariah's 10th studio album includes some of her raciest lyrics to date (sample: "I'm looking for a man that'll rub me slow/Make me sing real high/When he goes down low"), which is unlikely to bring fans of the more demure Mariah back to the fore—whoever and wherever they are. On the other hand, Mimi reprises and builds on the old school Motown sound that was hinted at on her last album (most notably, the Kanye West-helmed "Stay The Night" and, perhaps Mimi's best track, "Your Girl"), while the second single, "We Belong Together"—which finds the wobbly diva keeping cool until the final full-voiced climax—should do much to revive faith in Mariah the balladeer. She takes it to the pulpit on the gospel-y closing number, "Fly Like A Bird," an inspirational ballad that's equal parts "Butterfly" and "Hero" and features spoken bits by Mariah's family pastor Clarence Keaton. Songs like these certainly make Mariah likeable again.
Tellingly, the songs that don't work are the ones in which Mariah too heavily bites on the styles of her successors: Usher by way of Dupri on "Shake It Off," Twista via The Legendary Traxster on "One And Only," and the Neptunes on "To The Floor." (However, when she channels a predecessor—Prince—on "Mine Again" and "Joy Ride," the results are sublime.) Summer-anthem-in-the-make "Get Your Number," which samples Imagination's 1980 hit "Just An Illusion" and finds JD doing his best impression of Nelly, and the refreshing "Say Somethin'," a track originally slated as the album's first single, are the closest we get to the old uptempo Mariah. The only other track that does so is "Sprung," the kind of one-word "boy, you've got me twisted up" song we've come to expect as a lead single from a Mariah record, but the bizarrely futuristic track was wisely excised from the U.S. version of Mimi.
Despite its 14 tracks, Mimi clocks in at a full 15 minutes less than Charmbracelet, a testament to the unfussiness of the songs—few even contain bridges of any kind. But whatever the songs lack, they make up for in restraint—brevity keeps you wanting more, which is really Mimi's virtue. Just as you start to hear the scratchiness in her voice (no doubt due to all that "purple"), the padded hook kicks in or the song fades. Where once Mariah's trademark high notes used to serve some purpose (structurally, melodically, texturally), they now seem random, existing just to convince us that The Voice is still there—and it is…kind of. More convincing would be a low note (remember those first 60 outrageously versatile seconds of '91's "You're So Cold"?), but mostly what we get here is midrange belting. As gratifying as that is on the surface, there's still the nagging feeling that Mariah has damaged her voice beyond repair. By any other standards, of course, over-sung ballads like "Mine Again" and "I Wish You Knew" would blow the 7th grade talent show competition away. And, if nothing else, that puts her "in" with the popular kids, which is probably all that matters to her anyway.
New York Post
By Dan Aquilante, April 9, 2005
While Mariah Carey's last disc, "Charmbracelet," helped ease the welt that the "Glittter" soundtrack left on her reputation, it failed to resuscitate her recording career.
With "The Emancipation of Mimi," the multi-octave crooner has turned her world around, ditched the sticky kid stuff of pop purveyors and crafted a bold, classy R&B album that will appeal to both adults and kids.
The disc is fat with smooth- groove ballads that are surprisingly subtle when you consider Carey once squeezed the word "All" for seven seconds in her now classic "Vision of Love." Theses new ballads are stripped down and easy on the ear.
(She can still hit the notes that only dogs can hear, though, as on the closer, "Fly Like a Bird.")
Since Carey has always written her own material, you can't help but look for clues to her personal life in the lyrics. If this record says anything, it's that she's optimistic, upbeat and uncharacteristically happy. You hear it in the words to "We Belong Together," "Stay the Night" and "One and Only," which features Twista.
In her R&B duets, Carey has chemistry with Jermaine Dupri on the sexy "Get Your Number." They click so well together, you want them to cover an old Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terell hit.
Carey stays connected to the street with a couple of harder tracks, like the hip-pop collaborations with tokin', smokin' Snoop Dogg on "Say Something," and on"To the Floor," where she and Nelly mix it up to a Neptunes beat.
This is the best album Carey has made in years. Download this: "To the Floor" and "Fly Like a Bird"
Houston Press
By Dan Leroy, April 28, 2005
Full (and damning) disclosure: This correspondent and Mariah's publicist were the only two people to publicly claim the universally reviled Glitter soundtrack was the best thing Ms. Carey had ever done. I was the only one who meant it and still insist that collection of '80s-inspired froth and naked confessionals marked Mimi's real emancipation. But as a follow-up (discounting 2002's play-it-safe Charmbracelet, which tried to control Glitter's damage and only made things worse), her eighth release is fine indeed, offering the ideal balance of cutting-edge hip-pop and organic R&B that has so often eluded Carey.
Of course, part of Emancipation's appeal is contextual; true Mariah peers such as Whitney Houston have disappeared, replaced by a manufactured rivalry with J.Lo and lip-synching teens. Yet these songs seldom try too hard to make her case (the grating bling of "Get Your Number" is an exception) and are sometimes lovely, new Philly soul gems -- "I Wish You Knew" and "Stay the Night" being the best of a solid lot. Forget the alleged revelations: What will you learn about Mariah from brokenhearted tunes like "One and Only"? Less than what the music itself will tell you: Mimi is free of the unfortunate, partly unfair stigma of Glitter, at last.
The Buffalo News: "Mariah Breaks Out"
By Jeff Miers, April 16, 2005
3 stars/4 stars
The best moments on "Emancipation" find Carey sounding relaxed and confident in her startling voice. The production is clever, too, as when West manages to weave the '70s hit "Betcha By Golly Wow" rather seamlessly into "Stay the Night," and Dupri assimilates Bobby Womack's masterful "If You Think You're Lonely Now" into "We Belong Together." The ballads - "Mine Again" being the worst offender - are sappy and dripping with melodrama, but will probably appeal to fans of Carey's top-notch vocal aerobics.
New York Daily News: "More like a screaming 'Mimi'"
By Jim Farber, April 12, 2005
Does having a great voice automatically make you a great singer? Hardly.
Consider the pipes of Mariah Carey. By any technical measure, they're a marvel. Carey has enough lung power to hit notes out of the ballpark like a pop Babe Ruth. She has a range wide enough to cover all the octaves between an alto and a soprano, and the agility to move between those roles with swiftness and aplomb.
But being a great vocalist isn't simply a matter of hitting the notes. It has far more to do with the character of the voice, the ability of a singer to connect with the feelings behind the sounds, and, most important, the skill to treat a lyric like phyllo dough, finding in it more layers of meaning as the song goes.
By those measures, Carey croaks like a frog.
On her latest CD, "The Emancipation of Mimi," in stores today, the singer exploits the pure power of her voice with a new recklessness.
Carey has brought back that trademark dog-whistle she exploited in the callow part of her career with a vengeance, using it on 11 of the CD's 14 tracks. Nearly every cut builds to the kind of screech you thought you'd hear only from a dentist's cruelest tool.
Musically, Carey has fiddled with her formula by upping the hip-hop quotient. And while that genre has been a part of her repertoire for years, on the new CD she tips the balance closer to harder club beats, stressing melodies that conform to a rapper's notion of R&B.
Unfortunately, this means a gross reduction in the melody element - something Carey can barely afford.
Like the laziest compositions of R. Kelly, Carey has long based her tunes on the busy flutter of her vocal tics rather than on the formal rigor of a tune. Producers can cover for some of that - and Carey hired some of the best in the biz. But somehow she drew from them their worst efforts. The Neptunes seldom fail to come up with innovative sounds. They managed to here. Jermaine Dupri, a wiz at sonic gimmicks, hasn't devised enough to distract us from Carey's meager tunes. Kanye West alone scores with "Stay the Night" - if only because he turned it into a virtual cover of "Betcha by Golly Wow!"
Carey's lyrics are as full of cliches as usual. But what should forgive the verbal blankness - her singing - is ultimately what does her in.
For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening.
If no one can question the scope of Carey's voice it's too bad she has again used it to say nothing.
Philadelphia Daily News: Carey's on comeback trail with 'Emancipation'
By Jonathan Rakif
B+
BREAKING THE JINX: Mariah Carey, still name-checked by many a young soul/pop diva, achieves a successful and long overdue comeback with "The Emancipation of Mimi" (Island). The set is more narrowly focused than previous albums, zeroing in on contemporary, hip-hop-flavored R&B songs about searching for romance and hooking up for hot times. And Carey shows unusual vocal restraint, making more out of less and downplaying her diva histrionics. (Listen and learn, Carey-wannabes!) Helping Mimi (Mariah's nickname) keep the beats fresh and real are co-producers and co-writers the Neptunes, Kanye West and Jermaine Dupri, and guests Nelly, Snoop Dogg and Twista.
The Boston Globe: Mariah Carey sounds like her old self
By Joan Anderman, April 12, 2005
The new millennium hasn't been kind to Mariah Carey. Or maybe it's vice versa. In the last five years Carey has given us ''Glitter," the film debacle; ''Charmbracelet," the musical disaster; and a series of online ramblings and nationally televised meltdowns that led to a stay in a discreet Connecticut hospital.
Carey, in turn, received a $28 million paycheck from Virgin Records to go away.
A change was in order, one might even suggest overdue. Taking a conceptual cue from Jennifer Lopez -- who successfully rebranded herself as J.Lo -- Carey is back in record stores today with ''The Emancipation of Mimi," an allusion to her independence and her nickname, on Island Def Jam. The concept is liberation from convention and oppression, and a return to the true self, although her aesthetic vision is dealt a fatal blow by Carey's new look (bronzed statue) and first single (the slinky party jam ''It's Like That") -- neither of which evokes Mimi, whoever she is, but rather Beyonce.
But let's not let niggling details like vision and aesthetics distract from the real story, which is that Carey's new album is, at heart, a pleasing return to the midtempo R&B and powerhouse ballads that made her the biggest-selling female artist of the '90s. The disc is front-loaded with the requisite handful of edgy club numbers boasting ego-stroking cameos from Twista, Jermaine Dupri, Snoop Dog, and Nelly. It's no small feat helping Mariah Carey -- an artist who's lately veered dangerously toward self-parody -- sound reasonably fresh, and ubiquitous producers like the Neptunes and Kanye West work their signature magic.
More important, the pros have infused these urbane dance-floor hookups with a great dose of old-school pop-soul -- a heady mix that the current and generally underendowed crop of divas perpetually fails to master. The Dupri-produced ''We Belong Together" deftly samples Bobby Womack's ''If You Think You're Lonely Now," and West masterfully updates the '70s staple ''Betcha By Golly Wow" on ''Stay the Night." The Neptunes were at the helm for ''Say Something," an itchy-sweet come-on that finds Carey (who deserves credit, as usual, for co-penning every one of these tracks) sounding more relaxed than she has in years. The singer seems to have come to terms with the fact that she's got a few really good tricks -- supersonic high notes, sultry coos, impeccable melismas, emotional yelps -- and the best idea is to trot them out in satisfying formation.
Carey's emancipation isn't so much about freedom of expression as it is freedom from expectation. Bottom line, Carey is a limo-loving superstar who sounds a lot more like herself dropping product placements for Bacardi and Louis Vuitton, and singing the praises of her house on Capri and her sick hot tub, than she did on the cheesy personal remembrances of ''Rainbow," or the faux hip-hop, plastic funk, and adult contemporary shlock she's investigated during the last half-decade. The big-money ballad here, ''Mine Again," begins with a graceful electric piano line. Casual horns and thumping bass guitar, and not much else, are subtly introduced. Carey takes deep breaths and sings giant curlicues around broken-hearted cliches. In this artist's badly damaged musical world, what's old is new again, and it couldn't sound like a safer bet.
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