From The Vault: Mariah Carey Performs ‘We Belong Together & Fly Like A Bird’ At Grammy’s 2006

Our classic From The Vault feature this week revisits Mariah Carey’s rousing performance of ‘We Belong Together & Fly Like A Bird’ at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Though a fan of Mariah’s earlier work, it’s these two songs in particular that stand as her all-time best IMO. After the record-breaking success of ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’, the album which these were lifted from, this performance was everything it needed to be – rousing, emotive and vocally stunning. Check it out:

Loved it, loved it, loved it. Some of you question why I go in on Mariah at times; well, one only has to compare performances like this that actually ‘move’ you to the lazy, ‘going-through-the-motions’ type performances we see from ol’ Mimi these days. Yes, some parts of this were lipsynched (the latter belting), yet it almost didn’t matter because she sounded great on the live parts. I mean she was singing with such conviction that the live and lipsynched parts blended seamlessly.

Many of the 2009 Mariah defenders will tout the idea that she doesn’t need to go-all out performance-wise or that her vocals are still ahead of the rest or that her sales entitle her to perform however she wants. I can’t say I agree; I feel Mariah has become too complacent, but that’s a whole other post!

For now, though, I’ll enjoy awesome performances like this and hope there’s more to come along these lines from Mariah…