Mariah Carey's trip back to the ocean of treacle she walked away from in a decently successful attempt to do more contemporary fair earlier this decade continues with the weepy video for "I Want to Know What Love Is," the Foreigner cover that appears on her latest album, Memoirs of a Perfect Angel. Mariah stands in a baseball diamond, belting the song out (she's always had a great voice, which is as obvious as it is true) in front of fans who look seriously touched by the ability to hear Mariah do a song that was awful 20 years ago, and the same today. This still screams Sister Act 2: Attack of the Clones to me, but I guess this is probably the right time of year to launch this kind of cheesiness.
Mariah is to singing what Joe Satriani is to guitar playing. Technically good, but there's no emotion there. I wouldn't describe her as a "great" singer. To be a great singer, you have to move me in some way.
I sort of stan really hard for Mariah Carey, so the fact that I think she's a "great" singer doesn't really mean anything. That having been said, I really dislike this cover, and 'Memoirs' doesn't really approach her better work, even with The Dream and Tricky Stewart handling most of the album. On a mostly unrelated note, I think this performance is pretty great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxxA-vyn-2k
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On a positive note: I think she's better than Celine Dion.