Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande to feature on a song with Barbra Streisand, which is produced by Walter Afanasieff?!

A shot from the music video of “Triumphant (Get ‘Em)” featuring Mariah Carey as a ring girl, holding up a sign, which says ‘Fuck Walter’.

So, Barba Streisand is releasing a new album. I know this seems different from the regular programming here on Random J Pop, but walk with me for a sec.

Barbra’s upcoming duets album, The Secret Of Life: Partners, Volume Two — her fourth duets album, if you don’t include the Guilty albums with Barry Gibb — will feature Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande on a song together, which in and of itself is cool. But the real kicker is that this album of Barba’s features the production of Walter Afanasieff — who has produced for Barbra in the past, but is most famed and best known for his work with Mariah Carey. Walter had worked on every single one of Mariah’s albums, from her debut right the way up to Butterfly — including her first Christmas album and her live EP MTV Unplugged — but he has not worked with Mariah since then.

Whilst some things have come to light about the dissolution of Carey and Walter’s working relationship in the wake of interviews, Mariah’s memoirs and her touching on how they worked together and their parting of ways on Questlove’s podcast — Lambs knew immediately back when Rainbow was first released, that there had to have been a falling out, because it was the first time Walter’s name was not listed in the liner notes for a Mariah album. And the common account of what may have happened is that Walter was a bit too close to Mariah’s controlling ex-husband for her comfort. Especially as Tommy Mottola was the one who put the two of them together in the first place. Although I did always wonder how “Lead the Way” on Glitter came about, given that Walter is listed as a co-writer and producer on that song, with Jam & Lewis credited for additional production. Maybe it was a song they had originally worked on back in the day?

Regardless of what happened, Walter is a part of Mariah’s legacy, having been involved in not just a whole bunch of her hits, including “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Mariah has never bad-mouthed Walter publically. But there is clearly some bad blood between them. Or at least there was. So for Mariah to have her name attached to a new song which Walter is involved with is a HUGE deal. Mariah clearly weighed up whether it was worth turning down an opportunity to work with Barba over a feud with Walter and said ‘Absolutely not, darling’. Mariah probably never saw that man once and sent her vocals to Barba’s recording engineer on a compact disc.

Barbra has also been signed to Columbia Records for her entire recording career, since 1963 — meaning that she and Mariah were label mates at one time, as Mariah was signed to Columbia records from 1990–1999. So not only are we getting Mariah on a song produced by Walter Afanasieef for the first time in over a decade, but it’s releasing through Columbia records — the same record label she famously parted ways with in 1999 and has been dragging ever since.

As for the Ariana of it all, I think it’s really cool that Mariah and Ariana are working together again. Despite not liking the version of “Oh, Santa!” with Ariana and the version of “Yes, And?” with Mariah — I like the idea of Mariah and Ariana working together every now and then. I really want them to get it right, because there is a version of a song out there SOMEWHERE where the two of them sound great together throughout an entire song. Maybe this Barbra song will be the song, given that it’s not Ariana adding vocals to a pre-existing song of Mariah’s or Mariah adding vocals to a pre-existing song of Ariana’s. They actually have the chance to build the song together. Although Barbra being another voice and the main artist on the song may limit what they can do. Who knows?! I’mma be checking the song out regardless.