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About this_is_qhm from the Philippines: I love the intricate vocal harmonies only Mariah can make.

Mariah's vocal decline (98,383) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines It's a confluence of so many things. Her lifestyle, her technique, aging, individual differences, etc. - especially individual differences. I know people in their early 30s who avoid dairy, try to live clean and rest well and yet they still can't sing as well as they did 5-10 years ago. On the other hand, I also know some people who are pushing 50 who live their life to the absolute fullest, indulging in their unhealthy habits and vices frequently, and can still deliver vocally today as they did when they were in their 20s in terms of range and power, just more mature sounding and a tad less agile and fluid. Mariah's vocal situation is unique, and I feel like that's one of the reasons that make her voice such a fascinating subject, because it does evolve with every release. Of course I would love her to still have the effortless, buttery tone she had in 1995, but I wouldn't want her to be stuck there either, as it was the grit in her more mature, older vocals that lent a stronger sense of conviction and character to many of her songs Butterfly onwards, that she would not have otherwise convincingly pulled off had she sung it with her the ostentatious, less nuanced delivery her voice allowed her to do during her first 5-6 years in the industry. (Sunday 18 July 2021; 05:24)

Re: Somewhat Loved (98,019) (98,037) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines As someone who goes and judges any song by the melody first, this sounds promising. Love how the edgier, harder-hitting chorus provides a nice contrast to the sweeter melody of the verses. And that beat does knock. This is usually the type of production that Jimmy and Terry would reserve for Janet. Speaking about sweeter sounding melodies (which the Somewhat Loved verses have), does anybody else notice a trend pointing towards that in some of the songs hitting the charts recently? Their commonality seems to be that they're usually laid into retro-infused productions, like Ariana's 34+35, Silk Sonic's Leave The Door Open and Doja + SZA's Kiss Me More. Not complaining. (Tuesday 25 May 2021; 20:06)

Re: I just want (97,855) (97,858) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines This is not about live performance. Like you said, it's expected that she's gonna lip some of it. But it's not like she features much of her newest material in whatever tour she goes on anyway. She's a creature of habit, and she's no doubt gonna stick to the same damn setlist leaving at most 25% for her latest outputs anyway. I'm talking about the upcoming recorded music from this point forward. Of course she's still gonna belt somehow - she can't help herself. It's her brand. It's obligatory for her to at least embellish her songs with high notes in whatever form. But since your original message is about her pushing herself more vocally, she should still do so within the limits of what her current voice is able to do without sounding too strained as it was on I Don't or the recent WBT re-recording for example. I'm sure Mariah, being the perfectionist that she is, is willing to do as many takes as possible to get the best one, but she can really only work with what she is currently capable of, controlled setting or not, and right now, the extent of her upper register appears to be limited to either whistles or belting in razor-sharp bursts, which have unfortunately sounded less pleasant through the years. Right now I'm rather more concerned about the songwriting quality and the producers she works with, because at the end of the day, the success of their collaborations depends on their chemistry. If the vocals aren't as reliable as they used to be, the only aspects left that she fully has control over are songwriting and production. Not saying that she's no longer capable of impressing us vocally, I just want to dismantle the popular notion of equating "impressive" to belted, acrobatic high notes and highlight that now more than ever is the best time for us to shift the focus more towards the production aspect of things, which has always taken a backseat to Mariah's vocals when she was at her peak. Mariah is still great enough of a singer to not need to hide behind production, but dammit if awesome production doesn't help a lot, especially these days. (Monday 19 April 2021; 03:04)

Re: I just want (97,852) (97,854) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines True. As much as we crave powerful belts, I feel like the world has come to accept a vocally subdued Mariah. It doesn't matter as much anymore whether or not she lays out powerful vocals. People don't go to her to get that anymore - they haven't since at least 2008. Cooing and whispering is the norm for her now, with a few attempts at "belting" (more like unnecessarily extended notes and ad libs) here and there. We're way past the point of it being a stylistic choice. As she gets older, it becomes more and more of a preservation measure. If the labored climax of Portrait is anything to go by, the best sample of the most powerful recorded vocal we are likely gonna get from her from here on out is her redo of We Belong Together this year. Thin, tentative, squeaky, and more concerning than impressive to listen to. I'd rather her stick to the range she's most comfortable with - her lower register, which she should capitalize on, because even today, not too many female singers have that to offer, especially in the distinctive tone that she has. (Sunday 18 April 2021; 12:26)

Re: Best opening line (97,752) (97,800) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines To me the best opening line may not be the most popular, but is brilliant not because of the lyrical content, but because of the way it was performed and its impact. It's the eargasmic opening line of Honey, delivered with breathy ohs, effectively ushering in the era of a sexy nu-Mariah, announcing her return from a quick break in the most seductive way possible. This is a level of expensive, effortless sexiness that she has yet to top. When she coos "Honey got me hooked on you...", you'll be like, "Same, Mariah, same." The fact that it's repeated in the bridge is just a bonus. (Tuesday 13 April 2021; 06:11)

Joyce Wrice (97,706) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines If you haven't heard of her, it's probably because she's an indie R&B artist. She's very much a lamb who released her debut album Overgrown over a week ago. She was one of the acts in that video of Mariah reacting to fan covers of her songs. She did the Heartbreaker remix. Also, she posted on her Instagram that her album was inspired by Butterfly, down to the cover image, while greeting Mariah on her day. I wouldn't make the comparison, but she actually has some good songs in there. She has a nice, clean tone to her voice. Not distinctive, but really pleasant. The production on many of the songs are great, particularly on Chandler and You. It's just nice seeing a lamb working towards achieving her dreams in a brutal industry. (Sunday 28 March 2021; 19:01)

Re: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (97,686) (97,694) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines First off, happy anniversary to the legend, the reason we're all here. Love Jimmy and Terry. They're very versatile producers. Just look at Janet Jackson's post-Control output (except Discipline - they had no hand in that); it shows their versatility as producers; dabbling in and mixing different genres to the expected brilliant R&B and pop fare and how they go into rock, bossa nova, country, opera and even canto-pop and middle-eastern sounds from Asia when they're feeling experimental. Their production is very textured, layered and really meticulously done - not even their least impressive work ever sounds lazy. Also, no one else pulls off rainy, thunderous quiet storm tracks like they can. My issue with them, though, is that they seem to always (and at times, only) work the best with Janet, and that all of their collaborations with other artists, while competent, usually fail to live up to what they do with her. Now this isn't to diminish Janet's input at all - if anything, she's most probably the reason why their team works so well together, like Givenchy's partnership with Audrey Hepburn in fashion terms. It's just that Janet seems to get the best of the heap, and whatever isn't used is repurposed for other artists. Even at the height of their popularity as producers, their most effective usage of new jack swing (and that genre as a whole) was with Janet. Michael himself was inspired by the hard-edged industrial sound of Rhythm Nation 1814 that it influenced him to shift gears with Dangerous and his future output, even sampling one of her tracks in their duet Scream. Whatever new sound they have is usually premiered to the world through Janet's material before it is redone for someone else. Take their work with Mariah for example. None of the tracks they've done with her sound innovative, let alone measure up to Miss You Much, That's The Way Love Goes, When I Think Of You, Runaway, If, I Get Lonely, All For You, All Nite, No Sleeep, Together Again, Come Back To Me, etc. Their work on Rainbow and Charmbracelet not only sound too similar (that they basically can be interchangeable if not for the difference in Mariah's vocals) but also more noticeably sound dated compared to their work in The Velvet Rope and All For You, respectively, despite the Janet albums being 2 years older than the Mariah ones. I hope they give Mariah something fresh this time around. And if they give her Janet's (or their other muses') scraps, then they better be damn good outtakes. But hey, anything over a predictably faceless JD collaboration is a much more preferred these days, right? (Saturday 27 March 2021; 08:50)

Re: Defamation (97,600) (97,604) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Truth is constant, but how it is received and eventually re-told is relative to who it is presented to. The same way the Earth is an oblate spheroid but will always still be disputed by flat-Earth believers for whatever reason they have. Just like how several witnesses to a phenomenon may re-tell their experiences differently. The late Olivia de Havilland sued the producers of Feud for what she felt was an inaccurate portrayal of her in the miniseries, but her case was dismissed on the grounds that no one can ever own history. The memoir is exactly what it is - a scrapbook of memories as recalled by the author. Their recollection may very well be biased or even faulty, so fully knowing this, why should we expect documentary-level accuracy from Mariah's retelling of her story? This isn't to excuse her for possibly twisting and tweaking some things around here and there to fit her narrative, but we knew damn well that this was something she was going to tell the way she wants to, for better or worse, and yet we didn't need any form of coercion to buy the book anyway. Of course anything put out there especially for public consumption is subject to questioning and commentary. The great thing about this freedom is that it goes both ways - so we might as well spend as much time questioning Mariah's family members' claims as well. If we're gonna be skeptical and investigative then wouldn't it be just fair that we extend such energy equally to all parties involved, especially if the goal is to get to the truth? (Wednesday 17 March 2021; 23:42)

Re: Bey gets her 28th Grammy (97,593) (97,599) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines "She could release an audio recording of her bodily noises played on a loop and still have it praised to the high heavens." Future me here remembering that she fully knows this with her lyric in her song Partition - "I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker." (Wednesday 17 March 2021; 04:13)

Re: Defamation (97,588) (97,598) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Look, it's her story. She can tell it any way she likes to. It may or may not be the complete truth, but it's her truth. Anyone with the proper resources, platform and connection can write and release a memoir if they choose to. It just so happens that Mariah has those at a much larger capacity than her siblings or her mother. It's their right to be litigious and we respect that. But as a fan who has no real clue of what transpired between Mariah and her family, that's exactly the reason why I really avoid talking about the validity of her claims in the memoir on here, because I really am in no position to comment on it, much less sift what I think is true from what isn't. I have been fortunate enough to have been educated by my biracial friends about a thing that isn't really talked much about called centering. Biracial people often struggle with it as a part of their issues with identity in a society that always wants to simplify things by putting people in boxes and categories. Someone like Mariah, who grew up in a predominantly white neigborhood, who feels more centered towards her black heritage, was criticized for being not too white nor black enough but also somehow benefitted for being white-passing in her career - you could see how this messes things up for her even up to now. I'd say that at worst she likely has identity issues and maybe even internalized anger that do show up every now and then. She's gonna eventually have to deal with them at her own pace, but until then, that's still different from being outright racist. (Wednesday 17 March 2021; 04:04)

Re: Bey gets her 28th Grammy (97,586) (97,593) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Breaking news: Beyoncé has already been announced as a nominee in several categories in the 2022 Grammys regardless of whether or not she releases any music this year. She's talented, but her brilliance has always been more impressive than emotionally affecting. Before Ariana and BTS' fans came along, the Beyhive was probably the most toxic and blindly allegiant fanbase around. She could release an audio recording of her bodily noises played on a loop and still have it praised to the high heavens. (Tuesday 16 March 2021; 08:01)

Re: Bruno Mars' Leave Door Open (97,551) (97,552) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines And it's crazy how rare it is these days to actually have a single with a 4-minute runtime when most artists and record companies in the last 2 years have been hell bent on keeping things shorter than 3 minutes to do better on streaming platforms. I don't care if Bruno built and maintains his career mostly on pastiches. As long as they're grade A+, lovingly executed throwbacks, that's still miles ahead of the half-baked, half-assed stuff that fills a great chunk of the charts today. (Sunday 7 March 2021; 16:52)

Leave The Door Open (97,547) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines This is all kinds of awesome. When people hear the term "70's music", most automatically think "disco", forgetting the smooth and velvety soul of that era. This collaboration between Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak is the best homage to 70's soul I have heard in a long time, and further solidifies why aside from The Weeknd, Bruno is the only other man in current pop worth acknowledging. People are sleeping on .Paak as well. This sets the bar quite high for quarantine projects - melodic, nostalgic and very effective for what it sets out to achieve. And it's not produced by The Smeezingtons. (Friday 5 March 2021; 17:20)

Re: Top 5 best album openers (97,510) (97,545) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Honorable mention: Betcha Gon Know - for the intriguing, vivid, angry narrative. 5. Migrate - The first second already announces it as a Mariah track. 4. Heartbreaker - The quintessential upbeat sad song. 3. It's Like That - The first line says it all. 2. Honey - Nothing like orgasmic cooing to open a slinky track. 1. Fantasy - Just the perfect start to an album entitled Daydream. (Thursday 4 March 2021; 12:39)

Re: Cover (97,540) (97,544) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines You Rock My World is the only upbeat track on that album that successfully approximates the contemporary soul sound of his past hits and was the perfect MJ sound for the 2000s compared to the other herky jerky and frantic Darkchild productions. (Thursday 4 March 2021; 12:27)

Re: Languishing (97,530) (97,543) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Regarding interludes - while I enjoy recorded studio chat as it does lend a sense of intimacy to the record, sometimes it can sound lazy and unnecessary, like those Janet had in her All For You album. (Thursday 4 March 2021; 12:20)

Re: Top 5 best album openers (97,517) (97,537) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines The sequencing of MIAM is the most random-sounding in her discography, but it still does play like a pre-divorce record for the most part, and Cry. being the opener was probably just Mariah subtly letting us know what's up at the time. The most intentionally selected songs on a tracklist are usually the opening and closing 3 songs. (Wednesday 3 March 2021; 16:39)

Re: Cover (97,533) (97,536) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines The mit-tempo trifecta of Heaven Can Wait, Break Of Dawn and Butterflies (along with You Rock My World) are my favorites from Invincible. (Wednesday 3 March 2021; 16:30)

Re: Cover (97,497) (97,525) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Speechless seems a little too drab and saccharine. Since Butterflies would be too obvious, I'd rather her go for older, beloved classics such as One Day In Your Life or even a gender flip of She's Out Of My Life. (Monday 1 March 2021; 07:50)

Re: My ranking of Mariah's albums (97,422) (97,426) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Nothing like a good list-themed post to force Bill out of hibernation. (Sunday 21 February 2021; 14:58)

Re: WBT Valentine's mix (97,399) (97,407) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Mariah has always been more of a studio perfectionist. She hasn't had the stamina and consistency to pull off an entire setlist live probably since the first 5 years of her career. After that, everything has been either assisted or straight up cheated. If she was still actually selling much and charting high in the 2010s, I highly doubt she would have done a residency and toured around the world. Notice how more frequent she did concerts and tours as her voice deteriorated? It's because she has found a way to get away with miming through more and more of her material and still get paid top dollar. Quite the contrast from younger Mariah who pretty much avoided long live sets when she was in her vocal prime. To answer your question, Mariah can still reach the high notes in the studio. Her brilliance comes in short bursts, great moments that are stitched together to create a patchy whole. She always works best in a controlled environment. That's whay it's just her and her sound engineer when she lays down vocals, because she wouldn't mine doing countless takes on just one specific part until she likes it, even if that means she's never gonna be able to replicate even half of them live, especially today. Perhaps that's why many gravitate towards Caution, because it's the first album where she didn't push herself too much to create moments that attempt to approximate her past vocal glories (looking at you, MIAM). People associate Mariah with high notes and unbelievable vocal acrobatics, and she's pressured to aspire towards meeting those expectations because that's her brand. To be fair, these songs aren't just difficult for Mariah - they are very challenging to even the best of singers. People are more likely to mess up (and hence avoid) singing My All than Saving All My Love For You or Because You Loved Me because of Mariah's approach to songwriting. (Thursday 18 February 2021; 21:33)

Re: WBT Mimi's Late Night Valentine's Mix (extended) (97,387) (97,390) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines I just appreciate her creative direction with it. After being served so many no-mixes in the last decade I have pretty much accepted that she no longer has it in her to make a decent remix. This time though, she actually managed to bring something interesting to an overly familiar track. A little on the indulgent side with the length, and it does threaten to overstay its welcome a few times, but these extended mixes from her are rarely slow, so I guess that adds to the appeal. As for her voice, the cutting and pasting of different takes seems to really become more obvious as she ages, no? She still sounds fine, but the razor sharp edge her voice has acquired with time is more worrying than pleasant. I can see how her flitting in, out and between different registers is more jarring than usual, but it seems like this is yet another installment in her vocal evolution. Droplet singles since 2014 have shown this happening. Caution cemented it. She seems to be doing the best with what she currently has. Now if only she can do them live. Her musical instincts, especially when it comes to her melodic choices and improvisations, are stil very much intact, even if her instrument isn't as up for the challenges as it was even a decade ago. (Wednesday 17 February 2021; 19:18)

WBT Mimi's Late Night Valentine's Mix (extended) (97,381) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Best re-working of a track she's done in over a decade, since the leaked H.A.T.E.U. remix that incorporated My Boo. (Wednesday 17 February 2021; 01:15)

Re: Taped performances during quarantine (97,351) (97,358) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines That fidgety squeakiness/sharpness in her voice seems to be yet another part of its evolution as she ages that she appears to have had since 2018 (if not earlier) and is particularly noticeable on the climax and final chorus of Portrait. It sounds like her trying to belt but not truly committing to it because she fears that her voice, or at least her control of it, may fail her. Whenever she does it, it sounds very tentative and more piercing than pleasant, but it is what it is. That "live" updated version of WBT is nice, though. It's faithful to the original, but different enough to warrant repeated listens. Sort of reminds me of the times when her remixes actually incorporated noticeable changes in the track, instead of the cut-and-paste no-mixes we've been getting since 2014. Plus, she's looking great. (Saturday 13 February 2021; 03:15)

Re: What other music are people into right now? (97,338) (97,346) by this_is_qhm from the Philippines Depends on what mood I'm in. If I'm feeling uptempo, I'd go for the awesome retro disco - funk - 80's fusion revival we had last year: Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? Kylie Minogue - Disco Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia But 2020 also forced me to tap into mellower sounds: Ariana Grande - Positions Victoria Monét - Jaguar Chloe x Halle - Ungodly Hour Along with both new and older material from Kali Uchis, Summer Walker, Snoh Aalegra, SZA, Yuna, Raveena, Jhené Aiko, Mahalia, etc. (Friday 12 February 2021; 06:43)

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