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Billboard, November, 01, 2003
Mariah Carey's legion of hardcore fans—of which there are still plenty —will wholly embrace this two-disc collection, which arrives on her former label. Disc one is home to nine dance floor anthems, including Robert Clivilles & David Cole's gospel-dripping re-rub of "Anytime You Need a Friend" and the duo's disco-etched take on "Emotions." DJ/producer David Morales, Carey's longtime collaborator, is well-represented; his additional production work on "Dreamlover" remains fresh and alive —10 years after it topped the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. Those in search of the artist's R&B/hip-hop jams need look no further than disc two. Her collaborations with O.D.B. ("Fantasy"), Joe & Nas ("Thank God I Found You") and Da Brat & Missy Elliott ("Heartbreaker"), among others, are all here. The disc closes with the sublime, sexed-up and swoon-worthy Carey/Busta Rhymes pairing, "I Know What You Want."
Slant Magazine
By Sal Cinquemani, 2003
Rating: 3 stars/5 stars
Mariah Carey's The Remixes would seem like another quasi-posthumous cash-in by the pop-starlet-turned-fallen-diva's former record label if the singer herself wasn't so enthusiastic about its release. (With former label honcho Tommy Mottola out of the way and Carey's MonarC logo positioned so cozily next to "Columbia Records" on the back of the disc, one might even suspect a Sony/Carey reconciliation is in the works.) Politics aside, this double-disc compilation is a must-have for Mariah's "lambs." Disc One is a collection of Carey's "greatest" dance remixes; though the older tracks ("Anytime You Need A Friend," "Dreamlover" and "Emotions") sound invariably dated, anthem-sized club mixes of "Heartbreaker" and "Fantasy" (produced by Junior Vasquez and David Morales, respectively) are testaments to Carey's commitment to the remix process. Morales' multi-part dancefloor epic mix of "Fantasy" harks back to the days of Moroder and Bellotte, and the frequency with which Carey completely re-records her vocals for club versions is unmatched. Disc Two of the album lumps the singer's famous hip-hop remixes (including Puff Daddy's "Fantasy" remix featuring O.D.B. and Jermaine Dupri's "Always Be My Baby" and "My All/Stay Awhile") with a slew of previously available (and completely gratuitous) album tracks. While it's commendable that Columbia actually went the distance to acquire the rights to tracks owned by three different labels (Virgin, which released Carey's infamous Glitter, Island/Def Jam, Carey's current home, and J Records), there's a handful of notable remixes and b-sides missing from the album. Still, the inclusion of "I Know What You Want," Carey's duet with Busta Rhymes, and two new tracks ("Miss You," featuring Jadakiss, and a horribly sluggish remix of "The One," a track from 2002's Charmbracelet) should keep Carey's flock pacified…at least for the six months until she cranks out another proper studio album on yet another record label.
The New York Times, 2003
Punk rock has died a thousand deaths, but its much-maligned cousin disco just keeps going. As long as there are dance clubs, people will need something to dance to; a quarter century after its commercial peak, the legacy of disco seems richer than ever. Two new releases carry on the disco tradition: Basement Jaxx's "Kish Kash" and Mariah's "The Remixes."
Mariah Carey is a traditional disco diva, and a great one. And she has never been easier to enjoy than on "The Remixes," a double-disc set that compiles a decade's worth of house and hip-hop remixes.
The hip-hop disc isn't perfect; it proves, among other things, that Jermaine Dupri is a hit-and-miss producer. But it includes some of Ms. Carey's most appealing collaborations. "Breakdown," with Krayze Bone and Wish Bone (from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony), is a marvelous demonstration of sing-rapping, with the three vocalists taking turns skipping over the syllables. And on "Miss You," with Jadakiss, the rapper has fun addressing the pop star as if she were merely a drug dealer's moll: "When I thought you was late with the coke/ That's when things fell apart Ma, and it stagnated us both."
The other disc is even better: Ms. Carey's brassy, breathy vocals sound best when accompanied by a thumping house beat, and David Morales, in particular, knows how to turn a histrionic ballad into a club classic. His 11-minute "Def Mix" version of "Dreamlover" is a revelation: after a long percussion break, he isolates a few of Ms. Carey's ad-libs; her ultra falsetto vocals sound spookier than all of Basement Jaxx's sound effects combined<
All Music Guide
By William Ruhlmann
Rating: 4 stars/5 stars
Columbia Records cannot be accused of stinting on the two-CD Remixes set, which has a running time over two hours and 20 minutes. Mariah Carey's former label, before she moved to Virgin and then Island Def Jam (where she recorded under her own MonarC imprint), has made a point of licensing extra tracks from those subsequent corporate associations, as well as borrowing a track from J Records in compiling a survey of the various remixes of Carey's recordings. This means that the collection stretches as far back as 1991 for the "12' Club Mix" of "Emotions" and all the way up to 2003 for the "So So Def Remix" of "The One." The result is a kind of history of remixes over that 12-year period. Of course, the term "remix" is, as usual, an excessively modest one to describe what has been done to the original recordings. A variety of remix producers have not only manipulated the original tracks, but also added various elements of their own to the point that, in many cases, the songs as initially heard are virtually unrecognizable. Every now and then, one hears a snatch of lyric or a familiar musical excerpt, but for the most part these are dance-oriented musical productions with only a nodding resemblance to Carey's records. Of course, Carey herself is always in the thick of the reinvention. The first disc contains more danceable material, while the second is given over to tracks reconstructed from a rap perspective and is filled with guest appearances that include Snoop Dogg, O.D.B., Da Brat, Missy Elliott, and, in the album-closing duet, "I Know What You Want," Busta Rhymes, who is actually billed in front of Carey. A large part of Carey's massive success of the 1990s came from her relationship to the dancefloor, and this compilation shows what her music sounded like there.
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