Mid-tempo magic

Mid-tempo music is what we find in spades on these two CDs. After her energized E=MC2 album, Mariah Carey gives us a more introspective, laid-back mood; while the new textured layers that Colbie Caillat utilizes on her current material give her acoustic base a new dimension. Winners in their own respective ways.

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel — Mariah Carey (MCA Universal). While pundits seem evenly divided on this CD; some call it one of Mariah’s top five CDs, others dismiss it as a downer, one can’t deny the resilience and presence Mariah still maintains in the industry. With The Dream and Tricky Stewart handling production chores, one could expect hard-driving R&B with hip-hop elements coursing through the songs, and maybe that’s where listeners get thrown off. Call this the Mariah Confessional Hour, or her harking back to her heyday of swooping ballads and mid-tempo tunes, because this is what dominates the tracks of this CD. While Obsessed is an upper, most of the other strong tracks (Candy Bling, Ribbon and Up Out of My Face) meander in mid-tempo mode. And what is delivered are a number of break-up songs and tunes that revolve around Mariah as misunderstood and fragile. Good tunes though, so worth the listen!

Breakthrough — Colbie Caillat (MCA Universal). When Colbie came out with her first album, it was just so charming and unexpected, people all wanted to partake of Bubbly. The trick with a sophomore album is proving she’s more than a “one trick pony.” An array of producers and musicians was enlisted to give this CD a much fuller feel and sound — but looking back at Coco, the sparse, “home cooking” quality of the music was precisely what gave it its charm. So does Breakthrough live up to its name? The first five to six tracks do make us happy to have Colbie back, but to be honest, I felt the last quarter of the CD to be a little bit too much of the same thing — her ballads this time out don’t have the magic of the first CD, and it’s the new, more lively tracks that shine. And while some have said that having one Colbie CD should be quite enough, there are enough good things on this CD to justify the purchase, even if you do have her first CD.