Obsessive Morons

So I recently made the mistake of responding to a spastic Mariah fan in a music forum about how I do not find her to be " the legend, godess, diva, veteran, hero(no pun intended), genious, etc"

This was a mistake (we are all entitled to make them), because the 21 year old woman who responded back was a nutcase obsessive (by her own admission) that seemed about as untethered from the ground as can be. I loved music compulsively. But artists, even great ones, can do wrong. Sometimes often, sometimes as a one-off. And even if I love what they record, it does not mean I find them as people necessarily without blemish (nor do I think it really matters).

This one fixated on the "genious" aspect, to the point of making statements like Jessica Simpson has a 160 IQ (I doubt it) and that you have to be bright to do well in the industry for so long. Ozzy, Britney and Beyonce proves that incorrect right up front. If these people did not have good managers they would be rocking in North London pubs punch drunk, working at Hooters, or in Vegas on some Tina Turner tribute show.

She claimed Mariah was like a female Elvis and was comperable to the Beatles. I about laughed out of my chair. Both the Pelvic One and the Fab Four eclipse her sales figures by a wide margin, and certainly in terms of overall influence leave her to mostly inspire young pageant girls and camp bar acts across the universe.

The menatl half-pint then proceeded to start a tack where I must be berating Mariah because she is a woman. Outside of patent stupidity, I couldn't think of why the gender card was played, but desperation makes for strange tactics.

Mariah can sing respectably, and actually sounds decent when she isn't resorting to all the melismatic whoops and octave dives that the last generation of post-Whitney larynx contortionists have often done (Xtina and Whitney and Mariah are the worst offenders of almost pretentiously showcasing their range, even when the material suffers for it). Having a concept of restraint has taken her some years to grasp (Mahalia Jackson she ain't) but it's to her benefit.

She, like Madonna is smart enough to work with decent production staff, which makes her otherwise indistinct material considerably fuller sounding. R&B music in general in the US has been suffering from a cyclical malaise. Flat, recycled motifs have been beaten to death, buried and exhumed for re-beating. Occasionally you will get mainstream standouts like some of Janet Jackson's recent albums or you will see a left turn like the rise of more Jamaican dancehall styles (i.e. Rihanna)*, but otherwise the bulk of interesting soul music has been largely underground or off-MTV, usually relegated to the neo-soul camp or even further removed (i.e. Res, Esthero, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, Beady Belle, or Cassandra Wilson). Some of them have astonishing range, but most often the technical strength of the voice is secondary to its expressiveness, and the ingenuity comes out in the material.

Mariah is not bleeding edge, or even particularly retro, but she does for the most part know the craft aspect of recording and performance, and in that regard her albums are technical marvels. Clean, well-mixed (if to the point of sterility at times, especially in the early recordings) and otherwise inoffensive to even the most dull ear.

I can't gush obsessively over any artist really (even those who I have a near completist attitude towards), and I find Mariah to largely be a waste. She is perfectly capable of singing less dogmatically and working with better material, but chooses the LCD soft-jam pop-soul that just sells units and is otherwise largely disposable. You can still love the stuff (hey, I like Kylie Minogue's more recent material, and it's so fluffy I'm surprised the cds don't float in the air) but I can't take it for more than it is -- pleasant, pop pabulum.

* The upsurge of which I attribute to the growth of dub and dancehall in the UK club scene, with folks like Lady Saw, Sizzla, and Lady Sovereign.