Is Mariah Carey’s ‘Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel’ a Genius Breakthrough?

Goddamn. Pop's leading ladies have taken quite the beating lately. Okay, fine, so I was wielding the cudgel at some point. But it's not like I had a hand in dismantling the greatest girlband of the 21st century. And above all, some pop stars deserved it. But lately, not Mariah Carey, who warmed our hearts on 9/11 when we found it difficult to get out of bed on that very day. So here we are. With digital copies of her new record, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel having leaked, nay, spilled onto the internet ahead of its worldwide release. The early verdict? Well it's rather nice if you fancy a morphine drip plugged into your ears, what with all of the record's whisper-wailing and computerized blippity-bloops. To be honest, post-rehab Mariah was riding the crest of her creative high with The Emancipation of Mimi and has been slipping since.

But some of us are old(-fashioned) and would think that. We’re also therefore prone to bitching about musicians needing melodies, vocals, and well-considered lyrics. Others of us, like Mariah, are post-pop. And Memoirs is Mariah’s proudest post-pop debut. It’s a debut that doesn’t thwart itself with such precious tripwires.

In fact everything, from “Obsessed” (of which we are treated to four (!) revolutionary club chart-topping remixes on the album’s special edition) to that half-assed Foreigner cover are early indicators of how far she was willing to take her Grammy diss.

In ways, Memoirs is for Mariah what Aerial was for Kate Bush: an epic thinkpiece. In one regard, the lyrics all appear uniformly clunky. But upon closer inspection, that is part of this post-pop revolution to which Mariah Carey is Eva Perón (sorry, Madge!) It’s as if she adapted the charm of spoken-word honesty and then found a way to make spoken-word listenable. Hence the bulk of this album being highly relatable, too. Further proof: the line “I wanna be all on your lips like gelato,” in “More Than Just Friends.” Another track, “H.A.T.E.U.” pushes post-pop just a little further. You see, the five letters spell out a secret message. One which may or may not be “having a typical emotional upset,” although a competing argument contends it’s “hold and tenderly embrace u.” Ultimately, this is one of those mysteries that time and flack will reveal as this track may be the record’s next single.

But the most post-pop moment here comes in the serene jam “Up Out of My Face.” In it, Mariah belts, “If we were two Lego blocks even the Harvard University graduating class of 2010 couldn’t put us back together again.”

More remarkable here is her commitment to avoid singing outright. Throughout Memoirs, Mariah’s voice exists in three vocal extremes: whispers, moans, and yells. She doesn’t need to concern herself with all those octaves in between one and eight. Basically, this is an album that, like spoiled apples for compost aficionados, gets better with time. But if you are the sort who needs letter grades or gold stars to determine how great this record is, the most I can offer are three words: Better than Whitney’s.