Showbiz 411 colunmist Roger Friedman, an extended member of Mariah Carey’s PR team, continues to serve up information about what to expect from the diva’s forthcoming ‘Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel’ album – today confirming that Foreingers cover ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ will be the record’s ‘first official single’ (rolls eyes). Check out the report below:
Foreigner’s Mick Jones can start ordering caviar and Champagne again: Mariah Carey is releasing her own gospel-tinged version of his masterwork song, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”It’s the first “real” single from her new album following the summer release of the witty “Obsessed,” which is also included on “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.” The album and the single hit the world on Sept. 29th.I heard the Foreigner song yesterday along with all of “Memoirs” and let me tell you: Mariah’s got a hit on her hands along the lines of “Emancipation of Mimi “The hour-long CD is ballad-centric. Written and produced with The Dream and Tricky (I know, but these are their stage names), “Memoirs” boasts a lot of singles. Starting with the Foreigner song is a canny move in these uncertain times. By the time its run is over, a new generation will think “I Want to Know What Love Is” is a Mariah Carey song.Mick Jones, who wrote it, should start picking out some nice new cars thanks to Carey. The money should come rolling in quickly.The other songs on the album — these are the titles, although the running order is still being finalized: “Betcha,” “Obsessed,” “H.A.T.E.U.,” “Candy Bling,” “Ribbon,” “Standing O’s.,” “Impossible,” “It’s a Wrap,” “Inseparable,” “Up Out My Face,” “More than Just Friends,” and “Angels Cry.”Several of these are radio ready. “Angels Cry” is an honest-to-god ballad a la “Vision of Love,” and should be a gigantic success. “Standing O’s” also has potential, as do “H.A.T.E.U.” — which stands for “having a typical emotional upset” — and “Inseparable.”Def Jam’s L.A. Reid — who previewed the CD for the first time yesterday with a clutch of staffers — is playing with the order, to get it right. But he really can’t go wrong. Carey’s album, is, as they used to say, “what the kids want.” Plus, it’s got stuff for the slightly older crowd. I loved the doo-woppy “It’s a Wrap.” And the Foreigner track is so powerful, it’s going to be everywhere.Good news, too: no more songs about Eminem. One was plenty.So, by the end of September we’ll have new CDs from Whitney and from Mariah. They’re each top notch and different from each other enough that their fans should want them both. Maybe we’ll see a return to record stores (we have but a few in Manhattan now) and diva duels on radio if programmers are smart.
Hmmm. What I find kind of baffling about this whole ‘first official single’ nonsense, is that with the ‘Emancipation’ project the first single ‘It’s Like That’ didn’t perform that well, yet the label stood by it as the album’s first single. The record’s 2nd single ‘We Belong Together’ dropped thereafter and we all know what happened with that one. So why ‘Obsessed’ is being dubbed a ‘summer treat’ as opposed to a single is hella confusing.
I’m guessing the poor performance of Mimi’s last album ‘E=MC2’, particularly the singles (‘Touch My Body’ aside), has the label very worried about the success of this LP; so much so that they are distancing themselves away from anything that isn’t an undeniable smash hit i.e. ‘Obsessed’. All signs point to this album needing to be a hit for Mariah, otherwise things may take a turn for the worse. Labels pump money into projects and expect good returns – especially on major artists such as Mariah. Regardless of an artist’s status, if they aren’t making money for the label, then they are in danger of facing the axe. Simple as. With ‘E=MC2’ just about hitting Platinum status in the US, despite a #1 single, massive promotion and 2-3 more singles, it was a relative commercial failure. Hence why there is so much riding on this.
About the actual preview, ‘Angels Cry’ sounds intriguing, but thats about it. The line about the LP being ‘what the kids want’ doesn’t excite me – if anything, it has the opposite effect. Some of you may wonder why I seemingly go in on Mariah the way I do, but when an artist who has been blessed beyond belief with such a voice and delivers classics such as ‘Butterfly’ and ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’ lowers herself to making audio-garbage such as ‘Touch My Body’ and ‘Obsessed’, one is justified in asking: WTF?!
I mean I really do want to support, but ol’ Mimi is making it oh-so-hard to…
Tidbit: Is it just me or is anyone else struggling to find the correlation between ‘ballad-centric’ and ‘for the kids’? Surely, these are opposing sounds?
Your thoughts?
