Npg Mariah

In 1998, it would have been a cheap joke to say that Mariah Carey had no other kind of hits than ballads, but in the ensuing decade she steadily remade herself into an R&B diva, obscuring if not quite erasing the well-mannered adult contemporary singer of the '90s. The 2009 compilation The Ballads – released just before Valentines Day 2009 – attempts to turn back the clock by focusing just on those AC tunes – 18 of them, in fact, including such mammoth hits as "Hero," "One Sweet Day," "Vision of Love," "I'll Be There," "I Still Believe," "Dreamlover," and "Always Be My Baby."

Mariah Carey claims Rainbow, her first album since divorcing Tommy Mottola, "chronicles my emotional roller coaster ride of the past year," but less subjective listeners could be forgiven for viewing it as simply another Mariah Carey album. After all, all the elements are in place – the crossover dance hits, the ballads, the cameos, the hip producers, the weird cover choice from the early '80s. But dig a little deeper, and her words ring true. Rainbow is the first Carey album where she's written personal lyrics, and allusions to her separation from Mottola are evident throughout the album, even if it doesn't really amount to the "story" she mentions in the liner notes.

Protest as she may – and she does, claiming in the liner notes that #1's is "not a greatest hits album! It's too soon, I haven't been recording long enough for that!" – it's hard to view #1's, Mariah Carey's first compilation, as anything other than a greatest-hits album. Carey was fortunate enough to have nearly every single she released top the pop charts. Between 1990's "Vision of Love" and 1998's "My All," all but four commercially released singles ("Anytime You Need a Friend," "Can't Let Go," "Make It Happen," "Without You") hit number one, with only a handful of radio-only singles ("Butterfly," "Breakdown") making the airwaves, not the charts.

Mariah Carey's first proper album since 2009 is a couple covers away from being as nostalgic as the Glitter soundtrack. Its title – well, the part that precedes the ellipses – is taken from a self-portrait, reproduced on the back, drawn at the age of three and a half. "I'll just sit right here and sing that good old school shit to ya," she sings on "Dedicated," a song seasoned with a Wu-Tang sample, a Nas throwback verse, and reminiscent chatter. Like many other songs on the album, flashbacks are laced through the music as well as in the lyrics, with Carey reflecting upon happier moments in a relationship while either pining or scolding.

The titular "Mimi" of The Emancipation of Mimi is, by all accounts, an alter ego of Mariah, a persona that captures Carey's true feelings and emotions. In case you didn't know what "emancipation" means, Mariah helpfully provides a dictionary definition of the word in the opening pages of the liner notes for her eighth proper album: it means "to free from restraint, control, oppression, or the power of another" or "to free from any controlling influence" or "to free somebody from restrictions or conventions." So, on The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah frees herself from the constraints of being herself, revealing herself to be – well, somebody that looks startlingly like Beyoncé, if the cover art is any indication.

Rainbow is the seventh studio album by American R&B singer Mariah Carey, originally released on November 2, 1999, via Columbia Records. On June 12, 2024, Carey confirmed a 25th anniversary edition of the album would be released on June 14, 2024. The anniversary edition features several bonus tracks not included on the original album, as well as a new recording for the album, titled “Rainbow’s End.”