The Emancipation of Mimi

Massive RnB pop with lots of dance tracks and hip hop production to go with a few big ballads. It's as commercial as it gets and expertly made. The rappers’ guest verses are pretty tame pro forma space fillers and some of the beats are very generic (almost covers?) for the glossy party rap era, a low ebb in hip hop. But her vocals are impressive and unrestrained but it's empty virtuosity, not my thing at all.

Can’t disagree that she’s a great singer, but this just feels like that middle-of-the-road mid-00s R&B that was everywhere at the time. There are some good songs in there, but overall it just didn’t do much for me.

She got a bit more urban, but still pretty middle.of the road

We Belong Together is a certified bop. How she makes her whistle register musical is beyond me but its proof that mariah is a world class singer.

Rubbish. She can clearly sing, but she overdoes it on pretty much every song - some of the notes she hits are more like a guitar solo than a vocal track. All the rappers who were briefly cool (and Snoop) show up, along with every producer, and as a result it's a bit of a confused mess at points. Not offensively bad, but dull and forgettable.