Album Cut: Mariah Carey - Faded | Me. I am one of Mariah’s best songs.

Me. I am Mariah was plagued by awfully timed single releases and bad single choices. "Hashtag Beautiful" was a really nice song, but it wasn't really comeback single material. That was followed by "The art of letting go" and "You're mine (Eternal)". All of which were...not that great. Which is why I was surprised when the album finally came out that there were a bunch of other songs on the album that would have made great singles in place of what we'd gotten. I always say that the only thing worse than a bad album, is a good album that gets handled badly.

It's a complete shame, because Me. I am Mariah is pretty much being Glittered; which I will now take as Mariah boycotting her own music due to the time in her life that it represents. Glitter represented the lowest of life points for Mariah and Me. I am Mariah also represents a time during Mariah's life where all wasn't right and she had people in her life who didn't have her best interests at heart. All of whom are the reason why we ended up with Me. I am Mariah in the first place. Not a great album, but also not terrible one. As was the case with Glitter, it had some great songs. One of which was the Mike WiLL Made-It produced "Faded". An album stand out.

"Faded" had single written all over it and I was surprised as to how "You're mine (Eternal)" was released instead, when "Faded" did what that song did, but so much better. There is every chance that it was a late addition to the album, which begs the question; why even release singles so early if the album isn't finished and there could be potential singles that come out of those sessions? Because absolutely nothing about "You're mine (Eternal)" screamed 'single'. The entire mismanagement of Me. I am Miming Mimi... The delusional is a whole topic, post, podcast, discussion and Netflix original in and of itself. The bottom line here is that "Faded" was the single that should have been and is one of several instances of good songs getting swamped in drama and lost in the midst of people's inabilities to do their jobs properly.

Me. I am Mariah is a strange album which is reflective of the turmoil and lack of management on all fronts that Mariah was in the midst of at the time. Me. I am Mariah seemed to be an album that was trying to new fresh and new, but without doing what anybody else was doing. Whilst also trying to sound like classic Mariah, without sounding like classic Mariah. So, the album ended up being this weird limbo like album where nothing on it really stuck. "Faded" stood out for me not just because it's a killer track, but because it was the one song on this album which felt like Mariah was being truest to her sound, whilst pushing it somewhere new. It has everything you'd want and expect from a Mariah song. Hot beat. Great vocals. A few whistles. Belts. Quotables. And her signature writing style. Mariah once again brings words to the table like 'Intangible' and slips them into the song like that shit is a regular everyday word and that shit ain't got four syllables.

I always like when Mariah gives me something a bit slow to mid-tempo tempo that goes hard. It's why I still fucks with Memoirs of an imperfect Angel's "Candy bling", why Butterfly's "The roof" is my shit and why my favourite song from Caution is "Giving me life". This is often a sweet spot for Mariah. It's why I gravitated toward "Faded". Because it's Mariah doing Mariah, but on a different level to how she last gave it to us.

If there is one thing to be said for Mariah and what we should gather by this point if we haven't already - it's that even the albums of hers which may not have done well commercially by her earlier standard, still have great songs on them. I cannot think of a single album from Mariah that didn't have at least 4 songs on it that I really liked. Me. I am Mariah is no exception. Lambs collectively sighed when they heard "You don't know what do do" and wondered why it didn't get the full single treatment, and I felt the same way when I heard "Faded". It's a great song and that moment from 3:12 onward is just... *Wig shoots off into the distance*