Product Description
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MEMOIRS OF AN IMPERFECT ANGEL is packaged in a beautiful 3-panel
softpack. A must-have for all Mariah fans, it will include: - the
CD - a 2nd Enhanced CD featuring the "Obsessed" video, a remix
video, and 3 remixes. Also includes a 36 page Elle mini-magazine
that's an inside look at Mariah.
About the Artist
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Imperfections are in the eye of the beholder. You can see them
as flaws, or as the very qualities that make us human -- and that
make us strive to be better people in search of a perfection that
we know we can never fully achieve. In the thirteen songs on her
spellbinding new album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, Mariah
Carey explores those aspects of our shared humanity with a rare
depth, honesty and open-heartedness. It's one of the strongest
statements in her long, distinguished career.
The subject of Memoirs is love at all its stages in our lives.
Experiencing it for the first time. Losing it. Remembering its
most painful moments, and also its times of greatest innocence
and joy. Yearning for it. Learning from it. Growing as a result
of its profound power. Finding it again and being grateful for so
great a gift. And, finally, being humbled, filled with wonder and
elevated by love's mysterious ways. In that sense and more,
Memoirs is a full, immensely satisfying journey.
"Each song is like an conversation or entry in a private
diary," Carey says about the album. "A lot of the songs reflect
specific, different times in my life. Others were inspired by
movies, actual events that happened to me, or the stories of
friends who told me about experiences that they've gone through."
With just one exception, Carey wrote and produced the entire
album in collaboration with The-Dream and Tricky Stewart. The
trio clearly shared an inspired sense of what Memoirs should be.
Sinuous grooves and instantly memorable melodies flow from track
to track, while the wit and intimacy of the lyrics create the
feel of one friend talking to another. As well-defined as each
song is, Memoirs plays with the beauty and consistency of a
classic, start-to-finish album.
"My main goal was to work with people I could collaborate with
without it seeming redundant or stale," Carey says. "In my
opinion Tricky is one of the most underrated major producers out
there right now. I really enjoyed collaborating with him. And I
especially liked writing with The-Dream, basically because we
both love having fun with lyrics and melodies, and we're also
capable of getting more serious on deeper songs. There is a
particular sense of freedom I feel when we write together -- even
though I make him stay in the studio all night until he is ready
to kill me! LOL!"
Memoirs' first single is the hard-hitting "Obsessed," which is
accompanied by a video directed by Brett Ratner (the Rush Hour
trilogy) in which Carey plays both the glamorous star and her
stalker fan. Like the video, the song's lyrics combine
devastating putdowns ("Last man on the Earth still couldn't get
this") with humor ("See right through you like you're bathin' in
Windex"). The no-nonsense "Up Out My Face" captures a similar
caustic mood, dismissing a former lover with the send-off, "When
I break, I break, boy." "It's a Wrap" delivers a similar message
about the end of an affair: "When it's gone, it's gone."
"Standing O," with its irresistible chorus, sardonically applauds
a faithless ex for his signature achievement: "You played the one
that loved you the most." "Betcha Gon' Know" foresees karmic
revenge for a wayward lover, but, once again, the clever lyrics
("Oprah Winfrey whole segment for real, for real / 20/20 Barbara
Walters for real, for real") encourage a smile amid the pain.
The ballad "H.A.T.E.U.," meanwhile, finds the singer seeing life
in the wake of a breakup and longing for the moment when loss and
regret transform into a cleansing anger. But the title of the
song doesn't necessarily stand for what you think it might.
"H.A.T.E.U. is the first song I wrote for the album," Carey says,
"and it stands for Having A Typical Emotional Upset."
Always a brilliant technical singer with an extraordinary vocal
range, Carey rises to new heights on that track. "I sing a
recurring melody in the upper register of my voice; it's not an
ad-lib, but an integral part of the song's hook," she says.
"That's not something I've done before, and when listening back
to it, it reminded me of how Minnie Riperton used her upper
register on her hit song `Lovin' You.' I thought how ironic that
her song was called `Lovin' You' and my song is called,
`H.A.T.E.U.' - and both use that upper `whistle register' as a
major part of the melody. So it's sort of an homage to Minnie
Riperton, a tribute to her since she has been so influential in
my singing style."
On a tender note, the wistful "Candy Bling" beautifully evokes
the blissful realm of young love ("Anklets, name plates that you
gave to me/Sweet tarts, ring pops had that candy bling/And you
were my world"), while "Inseparable" aches for a love that went
wrong for reasons that seem impossible to comprehend. "More Than
Just Friends" floats off into a fantasy of what a casual
relationship might become ("Permanently paint me in your picture
like Picasso/Love me down till I hit the top of my soprano!").
"Ribbon" and "The Impossible" swoon with happiness and
thankfulness over redemptive love that has returned to make life
rich again. "You did the impossible," Carey sings. "You rescued
my love."
Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel ends with a spectacularly powerful
gospel rendition of Foreigner's gorgeous ballad, "I Want to Know
What Love Is." Carey's voice soars into the heavens as a
soul-stirring choir makes it clear that the search for love is
the closest that any human being ever gets to the divine.
Which brings us back to the angel of the album's title. "I had
written a song called `Imperfect,'" Carey says, "but it didn't
make it onto the album. The lyrics of that song address the fact
that the world puts so much pressure on us -- especially on women
-- to be perfect and look a certain way, and that is impossible
because nobody is perfect. Only God is perfect. I know I've tried
to be a good person, but I am definitely no angel!"
"But after I put this album together and decided to name it
Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel," she concludes, "I remembered that
the Minnie Riperton album that contained `Lovin' You' was called
Perfect Angel. So I felt in so many ways that it was meant to
be."
