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Mariah Carey - E=MC2 (2008) Japanese Version (FLAC-EAC-CUE)











Mariah Carey Biography From allmusic.com



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Biography by Jason Ankeny




The best-selling female performer of the 1990s, Mariah Carey rose to superstardom on the strength of her stunning five-octave voice; an elastic talent who moved easily from

glossy ballads to hip-hop-inspired dance-pop, she earned frequent comparison to rivals Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but did them both one better by composing all of her own

material. Born in Long Island, NY, on March 27, 1970, Carey moved to New York City at the age of 17 -- just one day after graduating high school -- to pursue a music career;

there she befriended keyboardist Ben Margulies, with whom she began writing songs. Her big break came as a backing vocalist on a studio session with dance-pop singer Brenda K.

Starr, who handed Carey's demo tape to Columbia Records head Tommy Mottola at a party. According to legend, Mottola listened to the tape in his limo while driving home that same

evening, and was so immediately struck by Carey's talent that he doubled back to the party to track her down.

After signing to Columbia, Carey entered the studio to begin work on her 1990 self-titled debut LP; the heavily promoted album was a chart-topping smash, launching no less than

four number one singles: "Vision of Love," "Love Takes Time," "Someday," and "I Don't Wanna Cry." Her overnight success earned Grammy awards as Best New Artist and Best Female

Vocalist, and expectations were high for Carey's follow-up, 1991's Emotions. The album did not disappoint, as the title track reached number one -- a record fifth consecutive

chart-topper -- while both "Can't Let Go" and "Make It Happen" landed in the Top Five. Carey's next release was 1992's MTV Unplugged EP, which generated a number one cover of

the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There." Featured on the track was backup singer Trey Lorenz, whose appearance immediately helped him land a recording contract of his own.

In June 1993, Carey wed Mottola -- some two decades her senior -- in a headline-grabbing ceremony; months later she released her third full-length effort, Music Box, her best-

selling record to date. Two more singles, "Dreamlover" and "Hero," reached the top spot on the charts. Carey's first tour followed and was widely panned by critics; undaunted,

she resurfaced in 1994 with a holiday release titled Merry Christmas, scoring a seasonal smash with "All I Want for Christmas Is You." 1995's Daydream reflected a new artistic

maturity; the first single, "Fantasy," debuted at number one, making Carey the first female artist and just the second performer ever to accomplish the feat. The follow-up, "One

Sweet Day" -- a collaboration with Boyz II Men -- repeated the trick, and remained lodged at the top of the charts for a record 16 weeks.

After separating from Mottola, Carey returned in 1997 with Butterfly, another staggering success and her most hip-hop-flavored recording to date. #1's -- a collection featuring

her 13 previous chart-topping singles as well as "The Prince of Egypt (When You Believe)," a duet with Whitney Houston effectively pairing the two most successful female

recording artists in pop history -- followed late the next year. With "Heartbreaker," the first single from her 1999 album Rainbow, Carey became the first artist to top the

charts in each year of the 1990s; the record also pushed her ahead of the Beatles as the artist with the most cumulative weeks spent atop the Hot 100 singles chart.

However, the early 2000s weren't as kind to Carey. After signing an 80-million-dollar deal in 2001 with Virgin -- the biggest record contract ever -- she experienced a very

public personal and professional meltdown that included rambling; suicidal messages on her website; an appearance on TRL where, clad only in a T-shirt, she handed out Popsicles

to the audience; and last but not least, the poorly received movie Glitter and its attendant soundtrack (which was also her Virgin Records debut). Both the film and the album

did poorly critically as well as commercially, with Glitter making just under four million dollars in its total U.S. gross and the soundtrack struggling to make gold sales.

Following these setbacks, Virgin and Carey parted ways early in 2002, with the label paying her 28 million dollars. That spring, she found a new home with Island/Def Jam, where

she set up her own label, MonarC Music. In December, she released her ninth album, Charmbracelet, which failed to become a success. Although she took nearly three years for a

follow-up, Carey found a hit with 2005's chart-topping The Emancipation of Mimi, her most successful record in years. Released by Island Records, the album climbed to multi-

platinum status and earned Carey a Grammy Award, thus restoring her status as a megastar in the R&B arena. Two weeks before the release of her subsequent album, E=MC², Carey

scored her eighteenth number-one hit with "Touch My Body", a feat that pushed her into second place (past Elvis, no less) amongst all aritsts with the most chart-topping

singles. The well-timed accomplished also increased the public's appetite for E=MC², which arrived in April 2008.







E=MC2 album review from allmusic.com




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Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine



Two weeks prior to the April 2008 release of E=MC2 -- Mariah Carey's tenth album and the sequel to her big 2005 comeback, The Emancipation of Mimi -- the diva broke Elvis

Presley's record of being the solo artist with the most number one singles on the Billboard charts. Lots of publicity surrounded "Touch My Body" reaching number one, as well it

should: busting an Elvis record is always news, but this particular record served team Mariah well, as it paints Carey as being a diva who's bigger and better than the rest. An

unintentional side effect of this very record is that it also tacitly pointed out that Mariah has been around a long, long time: 18 years, to be exact, roughly two years shy of

the two decades that it took Elvis to establish his record. Unlike Elvis -- or any other major artist who's been around for two decades, for that matter -- Carey seems

determined not to look back, to exist in some kind of eternal now, never acknowledging that she has a past, unless she's wielding her divorce from her ex-husband/ex-record label

chief Tommy Mottola for some kind of sympathy, something she does once again here via vague allusions to naïveté and "violent times" on "Side Effects." Mariah refers to that

separation so often that it's hard not to think of it as something recent but it happened a long, long time ago -- well over a decade prior to the release of E=MC2, to be

precise -- but as the separation was the pivot point for Carey's career, it's easy to see why she keeps returning to it, even if the emotional heft of her singing about the pain

has long since diminished.

After that separation, Carey restyled herself as a relentlessly modern R&B diva, chasing every passing trend in a given year, a move that often kept her on the top of the charts

-- apart from the post-millennial stumble of Glitter, of course -- but had the side effect of making Mariah a musician who became progressively less mature with each passing

year, culminating in the hazy soft-porn fantasies of "Touch My Body," the single that broke Elvis' longstanding record and will likely only be remembered for that achievement.

Like so much of Emancipation and E=MC2, which is a virtual replica of its predecessor in almost every way, "Touch My Body" is all about sound, rhythm, and texture and not so

much about song, something that helps sustain Mariah Carey's run at the top the charts, but something that also pushes melodic hooks, and in the process singing, into the

background. As Carey's multi-octave voice has always been her calling card, the one thing that even her biggest critics have grudgingly acknowledged as her unassailable

strength, this is a little odd -- especially on the T-Pain duet "Migrate," where she succumbs to auto-tune -- but it not only makes Mariah modern, it also camouflages her

slightly diminishing range, so it does have a dual purpose. Sometimes all this production is good and occasionally it's married to a full-fledged, hooky song, as on the

excellent "I'm That Chick," a sleek slice of Off the Wall disco that's nearly giddy in its energy and melody, and perhaps on "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time," which also has a

lightness that so much of E=MC2 lacks. Everything else pushes the rhythm and bass to the forefront and mixes Mariah into the middle, so it becomes a wash of sound -- sound that

is designed to be fashionable, but like so much fashion, it's tied to the time and dates quickly. Which is why it's misleading to judge Mariah based on her new record of

possessing the most number one singles, as she's not about longevity, she's about being permanently transient, a characteristic E=MC2 captures all too well.






Track List


Mariah Carey - E=MC2 (2008)




01. Migrate 04:17
02. Touch My Body 03:24
03. Cruise Control 03:32
04. I Stay In Love 03:32
05. Side Effects 04:22
06. I'm That Chick 03:31
07. Love Story 03:56
08. I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time 03:01
09. Last Kiss 03:36
10. Thanx 4 Nothin' 03:05
11. O.O.C. 03:26
12. For The Record 03:26
13. Bye Bye 04:26
14. I Wish You Well 04:39
15. Heat 03:36
16. 4Real4Real 04:13
















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