Mariah Carey jumps "In the mix" for ABC's Mixed-ish

Black-ish prequel of sorts Mixed-ish (which I only realised was a prequel after watching the video below) has itself a theme song, written and performed by the one and only Mariah Carey, because....obviously.

With the show being set in the 80s, and Mariah loving music from the 80s and being a Hip-Hop head, "In the mix" samples Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's "The message".

Mariah is that bitch. Mariah is THE bitch. But I'm not feeling this song. Maybe it'll grow on me after repeated listens or hearing in the clubs that I never go to. But the song isn't sticking for me. As a snippet at the start of a show, fine. But as full song, nah. The lyrics aren't sticking, the chorus feels like it's hiding and Mariah's vocals... Chile. She doesn't sound bad. But you can hear that's she pushing her voice into a space that she doesn't have as much stability in as she used to. Mariah tried to go at "In the mix" in the exact same way she went at "Fantasy", but it ain't 1995 anymore. So she keeps throwing her voice in odd keys and places that throw the flow of the verses off. It's such a shame that after an album like Caution where Mariah settled into her new voice and sang in ways that fully complimented both her and the music, that she went and did this. Mariah's voice is distinct, even when she isn't giving us chest voice and belts, so she didn't need to do try and be extra in a bid to make sure people knew it was her when the show aired. But maybe that's what the networks wanted. I dunno. If Mariah had sung "In the mix" differently, it would have sat with me better.

It's a real shame, because it was nice to hear Mariah give a little throwback to the likes of "Loverboy", "Heartbreaker", "Honey" and "Fantasy", but this just doesn't hold up as well.

At least she got that ABC coin though. And with this being a show that will inevitably go into syndication down the line, that's another Mariah song that'll just be floating around and fixed to something for decades to come.

Whilst we here sampling songs from the 80s, Mariah needs to put Glitter up on all the streaming services.

📝 Mariah album reviews: Glitter | E=MC² | Memoirs of an imperfect Angel | Caution