Mariah Carey performs "Always Be my Baby" from the comfort of her own home

Home performances be the thing now, seeing as no artist is able to hold any form of outdoor or venue concert due to Miss Corona's Contamination world tour cancelling basically everything. And iHeart managed to rope Mariah Carey into the corona-festivities, where she gave a live performance of what is easily one of her best songs, "Always Be My Baby".

I was fully expecting Mariah to give me a gown, swing, confetti and candlelight moment. But she kept it very low key.

I know Mariah is fussy with her lighting, so I'm surprised she approved and allowed this to broadcast, because that lighting was HORRID. Maybe it looks different to her when she's seeing it through her phone. But that lighting was absolutely not the one.

As for the vocals, Mariah sounded good.

Mariah's voice is not what it used to be. So expecting this to sound exactly as it did in 1996 and the consequent years when her voice was still at its peak is ridiculous.

For the past couple of years, Mariah has really started to accept that her voice has changed and work with it, instead of against it. There was a period when Mariah seemed almost hell-bent on trying to sing her older songs as though she still has the voice she had when she recorded them, and it was hit and miss. Not only did she not sound consistently good, but she was hurting her voice the entire time. Painful for her vocal chords. Painful for our ears. Nobody wins.

When Mariah dropped Caution, I was so relieved to hear that she was signing in a different way and in lower registers. Mariah needs to take this same approach with her older material. She would be far better off re-arranging it and changing the keys to make the songs easier for her to sing. Many think that dropping the key of a song is a cop out. It isn't. It's smart when you know it will work better for your voice. I would rather hear "Always Be My Baby" in a lower key sung immaculately, as opposed to hearing it in the original key and just sounding okay. Even Beyoncé dropped the key on many of her older songs for her Homecoming performance, because she knows it'd be a struggle to sing them live otherwise, and she mimes half her shit anyway. Beyoncé's vocal sweet spot is lower now, so she's embracing that. Mariah needs to do the same when performing her older songs.

It was nice for her to bother with this shit though. Mariah is one of my favourite people to follow on Twitter, Instagram and the likes, because she does social media right. She gives her fans what they want and really leans into the perception of who we think she is, whilst giving us who she is. This was all a part of that.

Mariah ending her performance with an announcement that she's gonna go put on some gloves when she's already in her own home = Everything.

📝 Album reviews: Glitter | E=MC² | Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel | Caution
🎧 Playlist: Mariah Carey featuring...
🎛️ Mashups / Remixes: Mariah Carey x Clean Bandit | Mariah Carey x Sonic the hedgehog