Sniffles, rather than sizzle, mark Mariah Carey’s Ottawa debut

Mariah Carey made her performance debut in Ottawa last night in front of a smallish crowd of 2,900 at Scotiabank Place. Although she arrived on stage late, seemed to rush through songs and took breaks to conserve her energy, these were not simply attention-getting techniques from the famously difficult diva.

No, the superstar had a little cold, she informed us early in the evening, picked up from one of her dancers. It cut into her sleep, she added, “but here I am. The show must go on.”

In a gold-and-sequined princess dress that showed off her ample cleavage, Carey made a fashionably late entrance dangling in a cocoon-like bundle that descended from the ceiling to the stage. The full-length gown was torn away, revealing a short, leg-baring skirt as her breathy soprano fluttered into Butterfly, then darted from Shake It Off, Touch My Body and Fly Like a Bird.

Her voice was surprisingly strong, despite the sniffles, but there were backup singers and electronic effects enhancing her natural vocal power. A full band and a contingent of dancers accompanied Carey on stage, and she occasionally let them take over while she rested her voice and changed outfits.

“I’m not going to complain because I love everybody,” Carey said, as if to remind herself not to complain. “No matter what you do, you can’t make me hate you.” At one point, Carey played up her diva reputation with a tongue-in-cheek bit that involved calling her hair and make-up folks onto the stage for a touch-up.

It was evidently supposed to be playful and self-deprecating, but the sense of fun was dampened by her poker-face delivery, probably due to the fact that she repeats the gag every night.

Sipping something from a champagne glass (she said it was water, Carey seemed to come to life a bit later, and made a point of referring to her new line of champagne. On the whole, though, Carey gave an uninspired performance — one hopes her champagne isn’t quite so flat.

(The Ottawa Citizen)

Mariah Carey was at her diva-best at Scotiabank Place Saturday night, and not in a good way. You would think that a star as big as Carey — 175 million records sold and a trunkload of Grammy awards — would have been a major event.

But fewer than 3,000 glammed-up, hardcore Carey worshippers even bothered to show up for her current Angel’s Advocate show, which is touring North America and getting mixed reviews. Perhaps it was the price of tickets, which went as high as $175 a piece. Ouch! To be honest, after the show on Saturday night, I’d be surprised if she even got enough of an audience to fill the National Arts Centre, based on Carey’s performance on, and off stage.

Mariah is the goddess of Grammys, the Princess Di of the divas, as frail as she is fabulous. But when she sings, she turns into a soul-singing superhero, with a five-octave range that can still shatter crystal champagne glasses. And last night, she did plenty of both.

I’ve never been to a concert before that was so much about the star, rather than the music. Celine Dion’s show here in 2009 had its narcissistic moments, but nothing on Carey’s scale. All the self-centred diva-like antics might have been worthwhile if they were sincere but Carey’s struck me as all part of the show. And a bit of a lazy show at that.

The show started some 40 minutes late. Of course, all was forgiven the instant Carey finally made her entrance, and as grand an entrance as you would expect, with Carey suspended 15 metres in the air, hanging there like an angel, one with God-like cleavage in a dress that resembled a glass of champagne while the band played the Butterfly Intro and Daydream Interlude. Then, it all seemed to go downhill from there.

For a scant 90 minutes, Carey treated the fans to a slickly rehearsed, loosely choreographed musical fantasy into her glittery life, parading nearly as many expensive evening gowns and sexy outfits as there were songs, mostly taken from her last album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel with a few classics thrown in.

Backed by a five-piece band and with 10 dancers providing a little boogie, a hoarse Carey opened with Shake It Off, Touch My Body and Fly Like a Bird while posing like a contestant in a beauty pageant at centre stage.

Later, she blamed being late on a cold that one of the 10 dancers she’s touring with gave her. So it wasn’t her fault. Hand that girl an Academy Award nomination for best dramatic performance by a diva. I mean, c’mon, who else but Carey would bring her own makeup artist onstage for a quick touch-up, or performing Always Be My Baby from a white chaise-lounge and drinking from a fluted glass?

From that point on, Carey seemed to loose interest in the show, spending half her time backstage and leaving her backup crew to cover yet another costume change with an able cover of Michael Jackson’s Rock With You before la Carey re-emerged to channel Diana Ross on Ain’t No Mountain/Love Hangover in an inaudible whisper. By now, the novelty was wearing about as thin as Carey’s pablum pop, including Obsessed and Emotions, tunes as girly as gigs get. Like watching a Say Yes To The Dress marathon. I wasn’t that disappointed when Carey seemed suddenly in a hurry to quit the show.

(Denis Armstrong | Otawa Sun)

MONTREAL – Some might still call it rhythm 'n' blues, but it's really the genre's hip-hop-influenced, weaned-on-pop grandchild that Mariah Carey offered to 7,000 fawning fans Thursday night at a suitably shrunken Bell Centre. As the multimillion-selling, statistic-breaking singer proved one more time, R & B might have become more of a brand name than a meaningful style.

At its best, Carey's music is infectious and cannily persuasive enough to do the form justice. Even after 13 years, you'd have to be a hopeless purist not to be seduced by Always Be My Baby, which was mostly delivered as Carey reclined invitingly in a love seat. And if the hook in Obsessed or the sweet, anthemic We Belong Together don't do anything at all for you, maybe you're just not being fair. Not to forget Touch My Body, an irresistibly catchy song, effective even without the video antics of 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer.

But at its worst, well, God help us. Mawkish muck like the dreadful Hero, which closed the concert, or the over-emoting in the inspirational but uninspired ballad Fly Like a Bird place Carey more in Céline Dion territory than in Aretha country.

Yet maybe that chasm is not as great as we assume. Sure, Carey is a diva. But so is Aretha, who, for all her brilliance, really spawned all the vocal excess of this generation of R & B singers. Carey even had the sense of humour to playfully send up her image Thursday night, after Always Be My Baby, by having two flunkies come out to dab her face and touch up her hair. "Wouldn't you do the same if you were me?" she asked, to cheers. The star and the little people is, as always, the operative dynamic in a Carey concert.

Incidentally, it's hard to figure out why the on-stage freshening up would have been needed, even in jest. Carey is not what one would call an energetic performer: finger waves and slinky hand gestures are about it. Her dancers – numbering between three and 10, depending on song requirements – shouldered most of the physicality and visuals.

Should we chalk it up to fatigue? Starting a full hour after she was scheduled to go on, Carey waited a few numbers before apologizing and explaining that she had been up late shooting a video to raise funds for Haiti and got little sleep. The audience members – pretty soldily in the thirtysomething range – quickly forgave the fact that they would lose an hour's sleep themselves and showered her with love.

If you knock off about 15 minutes total Carey spent off stage for a costume change, she performed for about 70 minutes. With top ticket prices reaching $130 plus extras, it wouldn't be unfair to raise the question of value for money. But Carey's fans answered it with adoration. And we didn't come to argue.

(The Montreal Gazette)

Mary J. Blige has no plans to ever leave the music business, but she tells The BoomBox there’s another profession she wouldn’t mind trying on as a full-time vocation.

“It would probably be acting at this point, because if I wasn’t doing this, I would love, love, love to have been an actress,” she says. “After the experiences I’ve had with the acting jobs I’ve been given, it’s like, man, this is it! This is the challenge, because you have to find this person and bring this person to life truthfully. Truthfully, so that everybody else can believe you. I think acting is the most selfless — not selfish — selfless thing you can do because it is totally not about you. You have to get rid of yourself 100%.”

Blige’s acting resume has mostly included appearances on television programs such as ‘The Jamie Foxx Show,’ ‘Strong Medicine,’ and ‘Ghost Whisperer’ as well as roles in the films ‘Prison Song’ and ‘Angel: One More Road to Cross.’ Contributing to the soundtrack of the Lee Daniels film ‘Precious’ last year put her in close proximity to observe a singing colleague put her all into losing herself for an acting role.

“To look at Mariah [Carey] and see what she did with that film, it’s like, wow! She really did it because she went past the Mariah we all know — with the hair and beautiful face. All of that Mariah stuff, it wasn’t there. She got rid of herself! Wow, incredible. I know acting is something that I need to do. I don’t care how old I get, I’m going to continue to pursue it because there’s something in me that I’ve gotta get out! It needs to come out on screen. Everybody needs to see it coming out in another person, you know what I mean?

“If I,” she stops, and quickly corrects herself, “when I do this Nina Simone movie, everyone’s gonna see what needs to come out.” The Simone biopic, talked about for more than five years, is slated for a 2012 release.

In the meantime, fans can get their Mary J. Blige acting fix through the recently released DVD of the Tyler Perry’s ‘I Can Do Bad All By Myself,’ where Blige plays nightclub bartender who — surprise, surprise! — knows how to sing quite well.

(The BoomBox | Mariah Connection)

Mariah Carey was overlooked in this week's Oscar nominations, took a pass on the Grammys and won't be singing at the Superbowl this weekend. And what about that incident in Florida last month? The pop superstar gave a rambling acceptance speech at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, leading to widespread speculation that she was drunk. Millions watched the online video depicting the elegantly dressed Carey. Smiling sweetly, she stumbled over her words and cut off sentences with a throaty laugh as she accepted the "Breakthrough Actress Performance" award for her role in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.

What's going on with Mimi, fans wondered. Are we seeing the exalted diva fade, ungracefully, from the limelight? Far from it, I'd say. As she begins the year of her 40th birthday, the five-octave singer is a creative dynamo who appears to be making the most of her charmed existence. Her worst sin right now might be that she's having too much fun.

Among Carey's many reasons to celebrate are a happy marriage, a hit album, a new fragrance and the satisfaction of a job well done for her role in the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. She plays a social worker, a gig that required her to skip the makeup and fancy clothes. Although Carey wasn't nominated for an Oscar for her excellent performance, the film is up for six awards, including best picture, and she picked up an award for "Breakthrough Actress Performance" at the Palm Springs festival.

Carey has also embarked on a major tour, her first in three years, pulling into Scotiabank Place Saturday. Remarkably, it's her first concert in the nation's capital. The "Angels Advocate" excursion follows the release of her 12th studio album, the aptly titled Confessions of an Imperfect Angel, which went to No. 1 on Billboard's R&B charts and inspired People magazine editors to declare her one of the top 10 most intriguing people of 2009.

The disc is one of her better ones, by the way, full of slow R&B jams and big ballads, including a gospel-drenched cover of the 1980s Foreigner nugget, I Want to Know What Love Is. As for the love of her life, Carey has been married for about a year and a half to Nick Cannon, the multi-media rapper/comedian/entertainment mogul who's a decade younger than Carey. In a recent interview with Elle magazine, she's described as a "smitten newlywed". He bought her a chalet in Aspen, CO for Christmas last year, and a puppy.

Really, the only reason fans might be worried about her tipsy on-camera behaviour is because she's been there before, and it wasn't a pretty sight. In 2001, Carey had a breakdown, reportedly brought on by overwork and lack of sleep. Her behaviour became erratic, and not long after her infamous striptease during an MTV interview, she was admitted to a New York hospital for supervised care.

"The funny thing is, when I realize how young I was when I first started in this business, and how it was all crazy and nothing seemed real; I sort of haven't taken a break since then," she said in an interview before the emotional collapse. "So it all seems like one continuous day."

Until that point, Carey life's followed a Cinderella-like arc. Born in Long Island, NY, the daughter of an Irish-American mother and Afro-Venezuelan-American father, her parents divorced when she was three. Carey was raised by her mom, who worked three jobs but also liked to sing opera. After hearing little Mariah imitate her, Mama Carey began teaching her to sing.

Carey signed her first recording contract at 17. At 23, she married Tommy Mottola, the much older music-industry exec who discovered her at a party. Although he helped guide her career to superstardom with her first album, the marriage lasted less than five years. She later described him as controlling.

With her first album, Carey helped define the genre of contemporary R&B, taking it into the mainstream with slickly produced love songs like Vision of Love and Love Takes Time, both from her chart-topping, Grammy-winning 1990 self-titled debut. The disc sold millions around the world.

After the split with Mottola, Carey began to introduce elements of hip hop into her music. Between 1997 and 2002, a string of albums with girlie names - Butterfly, Rainbow, Glitter and Charmbracelet - found Carey collaborating with rappers and hip-hop producers. Sales began to slide, though, along with the rest of the music industry, and Carey lost her record deal. She kept writing.

In 2005, Carey released The Emancipation of Mimi, her songwriting energized by the influence of '70s and '80s soul and disco. A bevy of Grammy Awards marked her comeback as a pop superstar, and the monster hit, We Belong Together, was declared the song of the decade by Billboard magazine.

Clearly, things have been going well. Carey also has a remix album due next month and is part of Simon Cowell's fundraising single for Haiti, an all-star version of REM's Everybody Hurts that also features Susan Boyle and Leona Lewis. So let's not judge the American diva too harshly over her latest display of poor judgement. She's an artist, after all, with the passion and drama of all artists. And besides, she was probably promoting her new line of champagne to everyone at the table that night.

(Ottawa Citizen | The Mariah Carey Archives)

Mariah's two brand new music videos "Up Out My Face" (featuring Nicki Minaj) and "Angels Cry" (featuring Ne-Yo) are now available to download on iTunes! Be sure to download these hot videos and vote for them on BET's 106 & Park.

Both videos were co-directed by Nick Cannon & Mariah and are included on her upcoming release Angels Advocate, a brand new collection of newly remixed duets with some of her favorite artists, performing Mariah's favorite songs from her #1 R&B album Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel. Angels Advocate will be in stores on March 30th!

(MariahCarey.com)

Work, work, work.

Seven months ago, Nick Cannon said whenever he and wife Mariah Carey could manage to squeeze in some downtime, they would work on adding a little one to their family. But when he spoke to MTV News this week, Cannon said that although he and Carey will eventually have kids one day, it's too tough of a task right now with their schedules.

"We absolutely plan to have a family," he said. "But we gotta prioritize, because that's a major, major priority. That's like the only priority in life, when you think about it, is starting and raising a family. We wanna make sure everything is out of the way and that we don't have any distractions."

The two entertainers spend as much time as they can with each other, Cannon said, and when they aren't together, he stops everything that he's doing when his wife calls. She's his first priority, Cannon said. The pair will celebrate their second anniversary in May.

Currently, though, Carey is touring in support of her most recent album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, and Cannon is busy hosting "America's Got Talent" and green-lighting TV shows.

"She's on tour right now, I'm doing a bunch of stuff, so eventually we want to be able to say, 'It's time to have a kid,' and set everything up," he said. "But we're definitely moving toward [having children]. We got our house in L.A., and we got a house [in New York], established and close to schools. So we take all of that stuff into consideration."

(MTV News)

Today marks the release of the first single dedicated to raising funds to aid the people of Haiti, whose island was devastated by an earthquake two weeks ago. The song, a moving remake of REM's Everybody Hurts, is available from today and features some of the music world's biggest talents. Music mogul Simon Cowell helped to secure 21 of pop's biggest stars to take part in the recording.

As expected, and following the impressive critical acclaim that has characterized the film, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire has received six nominations. The winners will be announced March 7th through ABC.

Best Picture
Actress: Gabourey Sidibe
Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique
Directing: Lee Daniels
Adapted Screenplay
Film Editing

The film will be released on DVD and Blue-ray on March 9, 2010: Clareece "Precious" Jones is an overweight, illiterate African-American teen in Harlem. Just as she's about to give birth to her second child, Jones is accepted into an alternative school where a teacher helps her find a new path in her life.

(Yahoo! Movies | MariahHero)

Lee Daniels' highly acclaimed film PRECIOUS: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire starring Mo'Nique, Gabourey Sidibe and Mariah Carey has opened in the UK this weekend in selected cinemas. The film made over £260,000 in its opening weekend, a phenomenal amount which counts as the best opening of an art film in the UK in two years.

Precious is earning rave reviews from the UK media. Here are some excerpts from the press reviews:

Daily Express - 5 stars
Director Lee Daniels has come up with a fairytale for an age that no longer believes in white knights, handsome princes and glass slippers.

His film Precious has been attracting controversy and awards in equal measure over the past year. The controversy is because there are those who claim Daniels is peddling unhealthy stereotypes of black American lives. The awards are because it is a film of such raw, pulsating emotion that you would need a heart of concrete not to be moved by it. ...

The power of Precious rests in the ensemble cast. An almost unrecognisable Mariah Carey proves her acting ability with a key role as a sympathetic social worker. Paula Patton shines as the saintly schoolteacher Ms Rain. Precious is a young woman who presents the world with an impassive wall of surly silence.

Metro Life - 4 stars
Passionately told with bucketloads of compassion, this is a film that'll have you moaning 'no, no, no!' at the screen as Precious's grotesque mother cruelly hollers: 'I should've aborted you, you fat bitch.' ... But the real revelation is Mariah Carey, unrecognisable as Precious's care worker, a part rejected by Helen Mirren.

Mirror - 4 stars
When the words brave, intelligent and challenging are used with reference to a film, it usually means it's worthy but mostly unwatchable. Yet while the above three words most surely apply to Precious, you won't be able to take your eyes from the screen. ... After switching to a special school, faint glimmers of hope emerge from Precious's new teacher (Paula Patton), a kindly nurse (Lenny Kravitz) and a hardbitten social worker (a barely-recognisable Mariah Carey).

The Evening Standard - 4 Stars
To join this terrific array of performances we have pure magic from Patton as the teacher and a quiet, totally unexpected piece of subtlety from Mariah Carey as the social worker, Ms Weiss. Those who doubt the inner resources of this sometimes chaotic superstar singer will be knocked out by what she does in this film.

The melodrama is never without a degree of poetry, as if a movie by Douglas Sirk had finally -- after all these years -- got to be told from the point of view of one of the black characters. Millions of Americans know exactly where Precious is coming from, and her pain is common enough. The film's flaws are obliterated by the sheer wisdom of the players: they not only give you a young woman's life in the raw, but they convey the journey towards deliverance that educated women can make possible for those they care about.

Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing. It leaves you feeling that it is possible for life's horrors to be vanquished when the sisters get down to doing it for themselves.

Daily Star - 6/10
It's already reaped a bushel of awards and Oscar nominations are guaranteed. ... Patton is excellent, Mar?iah Carey can act, and acts well, as a worried social worker. But the honours belong to Sidibe and comedienne Mo'Nique, as one of the most memorable screen villains ever.

The Sun - 3 stars
Unless you are dealing with some huge personal crisis, prepare to have your daily issues put into perspective by the storm of unrelenting misery heaped upon this film's title character. ... Mariah Carey who plays Precious' social worker - a role that was originally given to Helen Mirren - goes a long way in exorcising the demons of Glitter.

(MariahCarey.com)

At first it seemed like a bit. But Mariah Carey wasn’t kidding, when, about a half hour into her performance Saturday night, she summoned her hair and makeup team to the Citi Wang Theatre stage for a touch-up. “I know this is an over-the-top moment,’’ Carey said with a grin as she was powder-puffed and fluffed while sipping her vanity brand of Angel champagne from a personalized flute. (Oenophiles take note, the Rose is coming!) And although she later sincerely thanked the crowd for tolerating her prima donna antics it’s precisely that mix of diva and daffiness that endears Carey to her fans and that worked to make the hour-and-40-minute show a captivating mix of sparkle, silliness, and vocal pyrotechnics.

Indeed, almost every aspect of the show was an improvement on her last swing through the Hub at the TD Garden in 2006. Even divas have to downsize; the Wang was not quite sold out. But what the show lacked in confetti blasts and video screens it made up for in intimacy. Crucially, the smaller hall meant vastly superior sound quality for her best-selling blend of pop, retro soul, gospel, and hip-hop.

Carey spun through her two-decade career of hits. While there were many images of love, including the joy of her married life with Nick Cannon on “The Impossible,’’ there was no “Vision of Love’’ as she gave shorter shrift to her early adult contemporary ballads and concentrated mainly on her latter day, fidgety hip-hop soul incarnation.

The seven member band - including three snazzy vocalists - was as tight as Carey’s outfits. The tickling percussion and bubbly bass lines of newer tracks like “Touch My Body’’ were crisply funky and the ballads soared in all the right places. Carey was in strong voice belting out old school pop numbers like “Emotions’’ and rhythm-heavy newer tunes like “Obsessed’’ with salty swagger and impressive technique. Carey dug giddily into the saucy kiss-off of the doo-wop laced “It’s a Wrap,’’ from her most recent release “Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel.’’

The physical stiffness that comes with the singer’s preference for stiletto heels and second skin wardrobe aside, she seemed more relaxed than ever. As a cadre of dancers and aerialists cavorted around her on the simple stage - a high white-curtained bandstand with pink trim - Carey reveled in the energy of the crowd and in simply singing the songs as opposed to worrying about arena-mandated spectacle. That down-to-earth vibe led to easy, clearly unplanned comic banter. At one point, before dedicating the ballad “Angels Cry’’ to the Haiti quake victims, Carey quipped, “I’m going to put on my serious hat, which is a really small hat.’’mThe hat may be small, and the songs often frothy and cotton candy sweet, but the voice remains big.

(Boston Globe)

The Sun's "Helping Haiti" single was finished late on Saturday night - and it's a cracker. Mogul Simon Cowell spearheaded the globe-spanning project which features 21 of the planet's premier pop stars - and Bizarre's Gordon Smart got an exclusive listen early on Sunday.

The likes of Kylie Minogue, Mariah Carey, James Blunt, and Alexandra Burke all donated their time for free to record a cover of REM's moving "Everybody Hurts" and the results are impressive.

Mariah sings the line: Don't let yourself go, 'cos everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes. See who sings what on The Sun and REM Haiti single by clicking here.

The "Helping Haiti" single is available for download on Sunday, February 7; and in-stores on Monday, February 8. Pre-orders are now being accepted at HMV. The track will get its debut airing on radio breakfast shows in the UK tomorrow from 8am.

(The Sun UK | MariahDailyJournal)

Mariah Carey is a self-proclaimed diva, and Saturday night she played right into the role.

Rather than hide from the obvious, the [39-year-old] singing sensation basked in self-absorption and dramatic gestures during her 90-minute performance at Citi Wang Theatre.

There were breaks to sip "water" out of a champagne glass, frequent discussions about the lack of fans (the machines designed to cool her off, not the admirers) and a pause to call out hired hands to reapply makeup. Her outfits - form-fitting, glittery dresses in gold, silver and black - were sights to behold, if you could stand the glare.

Carey appeared from the rafters on a swing, wearing a massive gold gown that required an escort to help her walk. (Not toc worry, said escort stripped her down and promptly transformed the gown into a short dress during opener "Shake It Off.")

"I know it's over the top," Carey purred. "It's diva. That's what they call me." A self-aware Carey thanked the packed crowd for "tolerating her diva-isms," and while those diva-isms clearly added to the ambience, at times they felt like distractions; Mimi was at her best when the voice was top priority.

Carey alternately revealed brilliance and self-consciousness when approaching her songs: "My All," the gospel-inspired "Fly Like a Bird" and early career hit "Emotions" were all powerhouse stunners, boasting the mix of smoky tones, soulful trills and high-octave whistles that have become her trademark. Other times, the statuesque songstress seemed to be holding back, carefully reining herself in so as not to falter; she appeared to lip-sync during the climax of "The Impossible," the song she wrote for hubby Nick Cannon, as well as sections of the sassy "Up Out My Face" and the entirety of "Angels Cry."

As those song choices reveal, the night featured several tracks off her latest album, "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel," among them hit single "Obsessed" and "It's a Wrap," one of the night's best vocal efforts.

But her older material wasn't forgotten. For a change of pace, Carey included the hip-hop flavor of "Honey," a slightly remixed "It's Like That" and the midtempo come-on of "Touch My Body," punctuated by a few well-timed shakes and squiggles. "Make It Happen" served as a wardrobe-change interlude, with her band and dancers on stalling duty until Carey emerged for the song's climax.

Carey closed the show on her best note, putting vocal acrobatics in the spotlight on the career comeback-inducer "We Belong Together" and inspirational ballad "Hero." Lest we forget, the diva can sing.

(Boston Herald)