Album Review: Mariah Carey - Here for It All

Mariah Carey does not release bad albums. She just doesn’t. Sure, some albums of hers are better than others. And some albums may not be great. But there is not a single album in Mariah’s discography that I can say is bad. And that streak continues with Here for It All. But of course, there is a ‘but’.

When listening to Here for It All from tracks 1 to 9, there is an overwhelming sense of something being missing. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any lamb who has chosen to be honest with themselves about the state of Mariah’s performances and her vocals over the past couple of years, but it bears mentioning irregardless. Mariah ain’t new to this shit. And she is so on her shit and locked into music that even on auto pilot when she’s not at 100%, she can knock out a good album which is far from bad. We already saw this with Glitter. But even so, there is no denying that Here for It All doesn’t glimmer quite as much as we want a Mariah album to.

Now, I’m not going to get too into how Mariah not seeming fully present in a lot of interviews and live performances over the past year. But that sense of not being fully present all of the time is reflected on this album. Every song on this album is good. But so few of them are great, because there is this sense of Mariah not bringing enough of herself to the songs. She says she’s here for it all, but is she really though?

Mariah Carey - Here for It All | Gamma

There is a lot going against Mariah these days. First of all, the gift and curse of that damn Christmas song. Whilst having an original Christmas song hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, become a traditional Christmas song and keep you booked every Christmas is great — not everybody has that. It has pigeon hold Mariah with younger generations as that bitch who defrosts once a year to push that one Christmas song. There is no awareness of Mariah’s discography outside of a Christmas song. Second of all, there is the voice of the songbird supreme sounding having declined considerably over the past few years. Thirdly is the pink and blue elephant in the room called Caution. Caution was an amazing album — one of Mariah’s best. And whilst it’s easy to look back on Mariah’s discography and start trying to see how the new shit measures up to the old shit — Caution is the benchmark for me. Because not only is it the most recently released album to Here for It All, but it was the first album Mariah released at a certain point in her life, which isn’t too far off from where she’s at now. And Here for It All unfortunately doesn’t measure up to Caution for me. I never expected it to. But I also don’t think it was necessary for it to. Sure, it woulda been nice if Mariah did manage to better that album. Just to instill a sense of ‘Oh, perhaps a bitch could do this shit forever’. Caution was so good that I would have been fine with it being Mariah’s final album. Not because I think Mariah needs to pack it up. But because the album was THAT good. I was beyond satisfied. Where-as Here for It All made me say ‘Perhaps it’s time she packs it up’. And even I can’t believe that I had this thought about THEE Mariah Carey. Well. That was until I heard the final two songs on the album. But we’ll get to those.

Mariah Carey - Here for It All | Gamma

Whilst it is easy to lock in on Mariah’s vocals not being where they once were and shit on Here for It All for that. The 2 biggest problems with Here for It All are the production and the lack of cohesion.

The production on Here for It All is generally good. But there are a couple of songs — Yes, “Confetti & Champagne”, “Nothing Is Impossible” and “My Love”, I am looking at y’all — where the production feels a little lacking. It’s almost as though either the producers or Mariah herself kinda forgot that Mariah ain’t got it vocally the way she used to. So she can’t hit big notes and whistle her way through sparse and generic ass FL studio beats the way that she used to — filling in for the lack of beat, melody, vibes and instrumentation. Mariah needs more richness in the production to support her, which is why the likes of “Play This Song”, “Type Dangerous”, “I Won’t Allow It”, “Jesus I Do” and “Here for It All” stick out as the better produced songs on the album. Although in the case of the latter two, Mariah’s throat came through on those studio days. But we’ll get to these songs, as they deserve their own sections.

Here for It All also suffers from not feeling entirely cohesive. It’s really shocking to me that we were made to wait so long for a new studio album from Mariah, just for it to be 10 tracks which don’t even flow like they [turns and looks into the camera] belong together. Maybe this is the result of taking too long and recording material across a span of years. Or perhaps this is all Mariah could muster. But Here for It All sounds like three different ideas for an album — all three of which are good and can sit together. But there isn’t anything tying them together aside from Mariah. And that’s just not enough.

You’ve got the hood jams for the strip clubs in Atlanta (“Mi”, “Confetti & Champagne” and “Sugar Sweet”). The throwback soul joints (“Play This Song”, “Type Dangerous”, “In Your Feelings” and “I Won’t Allow It”). And the adult contemporary songs (“Nothing Is Impossible”, “My Love”, “Jesus I Do” and “Here for It All”). And these groups of songs have one person at the helm. Harv is responsible for 2 out of the 3 hood jams. And a cool tidbit is that Harv is married to Felisha of the short-lived R&B group Cherish, who writes on the majority of his productions and has writing credits on all 3 of the hood jams on this album. Mariah doesn’t frequently co-write with women. But I do find it cool that she has 3 albums which shine a light on Black women who are songwriters. On E=MC² it was Cristyle. On Caution it was Muni Long (even though she only co-wrote one song). And here it’s Felicia King-Harvey. Anderson .Paak has a hand in all 4 of the soul throwback joints — which also explains why two of them sound like Silk Sonic songs. And Daniel Moore is the man behind the adult contemporary songs. Now, these 3 styles of songs can coexist on one album. Mariah herself showed us that they could with The Emancipation of Mimi and E=MC². But here, it just doesn’t quite work, because there are no songs which bridge the sounds together. On The Emancipation of Mimi you had a song like “Say Something” to bridge the hood jams and soul throwback joints, and “We Belong Together” to bridge the hood jams to the adult contemporary songs. There are no such bridge songs on Here for It All. The album doesn’t have a unified vibe. It instead has 3 separate vibes with no overlap or crossover.

Mariah’s albums have never been all that conceptual. The 2 albums of hers which come close to being conceptual are Glitter and Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. But there is always a sense of unification with the songs. Sometimes a song or two might seem out of place (i.e. “Daydream Interlude (Fantasy Sweet Dub Mix)” on Daydream and “Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise)” and “The Beautiful Ones” on Butterfly). Or the sequencing doesn’t quite work (the entirety of Me. I Am Mariah.) But generally, Mariah’s albums feel like albums. Here for It All feels like a bunch of songs which were just put together for an album, because there was no other choice but to.

Mariah Carey - Here for It All | Gamma

Mariah has never been one for long tracklists. But making fans wait 7 years for a 10 track album is a little bit raggedy. Especially when the album feels like it desperately needed an additional 2–3 songs. Here for It All feels like a case of Mariah’s team telling her ‘Girl, you NEED to put out a studio album. It has been 7 years since Caution.’ And Mariah then having to finish up songs she was messing around with over the years, her A&R having to send her some beats, and Anderson .Paak being the supportive boyfriend and saying ‘How about we try working on some stuff together?’. And then somebody stepping in once there were 10 complete songs and saying ‘This is the album’. And then we have Here for It All.

This album doesn’t feel like it was worked on with the intention of it being a body of work, which would explain why these songs don’t quite click together and why Here for It All doesn’t feel like AN ALBUM DAHLING the way Mariah’s shit usually does. And it’s a real shame, because the songs on this album are good. Sure, I sometimes skip “Nothing Is Impossible” and “My Love”. But they aren’t bad songs. I just find them a little boring and underbaked.

Here for It All could have done with some extra time and an extra pass to really dot the i’s and cross the t’s. It needed a couple more songs. And the songs that did make the cut needed extra tweaks and some additional production. “Mi”, “Type Dangerous”, “Confetti & Champagne” and “Sugar Sweet” are too damn short. “Mi” I will let off because it’s basically an album intro. But the rest of them songs? They all needed either a bridge or a featured rapper. As they are, they feel like commercial jingles. “Type Dangerous” sounds like something for a car commercial. “Confetti & Champagne” sounds like an insert song for My Super Sweet 16. And “Sugar Sweet” sounds like something from a Summer Always commercial.

The version of “Type Dangerous” Mariah performed at the 2025 BET Awards with Rakim should have been the main version of the song. Mariah’s lead singles were once known for featuring rappers. Mariah played a huge part in popularising rap features on songs which played on pop radio. It’s crazy to me that the Rakim featured version of “Type Dangerous” wasn’t the version of the song which was released and put on the album to remind people of that. The physical release of “Sugar Sweet” does not feature Kehlani or Shenseea. I really thought Mariah was gonna hit me with an additional verse and some patois as she did on the E=MC² album cut “Cruise Control”, but nope. It’s just “Sugar Sweet” with Kehlani and Shenseea’s verses removed. It sounds like a rush job piece of shit. I can’t believe the song was put out in this state. This leads me to believe that having Rakim on “Type Dangerous” and Kehlani and Shenseea on “Sugar Sweet” were not always planned and were eleventh hour choices. The streaming version of Here for It All features the Kehlani and Shenseea version of “Sugar Sweet” because it could be added to the digital versions of the album at the very last minute. But the physical editions of Here for It All do not include it, because the physical presses were probably already in production by the time Kehlani and Shenseea were added to the song. It’s a mess.

Underbaked is probably the best way I would describe this album. Of course, Mariah wasn’t working on this album for the 7 whole years since 2018’s Caution. But for an album to release 7 years later and to still feel underbaked, when at points during those years Mariah had teased working on stuff — it’s a tough pill to swallow. Even though Mariah had said numerous times that she didn’t have as much time as she wanted to work on Caution — it still felt complete and like a body of work. Whatever corners may have been cut, they didn’t seem obvious on Caution. But here, somebody said ‘We gon’ do the best we can with what we’ve GHAT’ knowing that what they had wasn’t great and needed work.

I wasn’t even half way through Here for It All and I was massively down on it. Thinking ‘Lawd, Mariah mighta just put out an album that I’m not really feeling’. And then track 9 hit.

Mariah Carey - Here for It All | Gamma

“Jesus I Do” is amazing. Now, Lambs know that Mariah has always been about her faith through her music, and that her albums almost always feature either a straight-up Gospel song (“Make It Happen”, “Fly Like a Bird”, “Heavenly (No Ways Tired/Can’t Give Up Now)”) or a Gospel sounding song (“Vanishing”, “Cry”). Mariah has put out enough of these songs throughout her career that I was able to put together a 25+ track playlist of them. So Mariah releasing a song called “Jesus I Do” with the legendary Clark Sisters is no surprise. The surprise however, is the sound of this record. Because I certainly did not expect “Jesus I Do” to not only be one of the most uptempo songs on the album, but for it to be on some Disco Gospel shit and rank as one of the pussiest Gospel records of the decade. It’s a fantastic song. The only blessed beef I have with it is that it is a bit too short and too light on The Clark Sisters. The Clark Sisters’ second verse needed to be the same length as Mariah’s verse. And the second pass of the chorus needed to run twice. The song is so damn good that it really should have been released as a single for the holidays. Gospel radio and even adult contemporary radio would have playlisted the shit out of it. And it would have been some nice self counter-programming with Mariah’s ye ole faithful holiday hit. A Mariah song for the holidays which isn’t “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, yet is festive enough that it works as a holiday song, to help it land a little softer with the secular audience than it would at any other time of year. And then there are is Black Christians audience, which is a pretty sizable audience.

“Jesus I Do” is an amazing song.

And then the final track hits. Track 10. The album title track “Here for It All”. And wow. What a moment. When Mariah had said that this album would feature ballads, I was weary, given where Mariah vocals seemed to be at. Because there was no way on earth she was going to be able to sing ballads anywhere close to how she used to. And based on The Mimi Sessions, even if Mariah avoided big notes, whistles and sang the song in the lowest possible key she could comfortably muster, she still wouldn’t sound great — as somewhat evidenced on “Nothing Is Impossible”. But Mariah must have had a good vocal day when she recorded “Here for It All”, because she sounds great on this song. So good that I wonder when this song was recorded, because this sounds like Mariah circa 2012. And not only this, but the vocal production on this song is noticeably better than any other song on the album. Mariah is layering and has her background vocals floating throughout the entire song. I needed more of THIS Mariah on the other 8 songs.

“Here for It All” as just a ballad would have been fine. It still woulda been great. But at the 4 minute mark it switches up and flips into uptempo gospel, and Mariah continues to give us them good vocals and actually take us to church.

Now, I had long made peace with Mariah’s voice being what it was at points in time and that it would continue to change and that her vocal feats would become lesser on songs. Because of course a bitch is not going to be able to sing how she did on “Vanishing” and “Emotions” forever. But I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t disheartened at how Mariah was sounding during The Mimi Sessions and most of this album, because Mariah sounded like something was wrong with her. It wasn’t just that she had lost some of her range and fluidity — which is to be expected — but the ability to just sing anything. Singing seemed to require more from her than it should. So listening to her soar on “Here for It All” made me a bit emotional, because it was a sign that the Mariah I knew and grew up being a fan of was STILL in there somewhere. There was no better note for this album to end on than “Here for It All”. It’s an incredible song, which features so many flecks of different songs Mariah has released over the years and also shows off her personality, her humour and her heart. “Here for It All” is such a great encapsulation of who she is as a person, as an artist and as a singer. There is so much of Mariah in this song.

“Jesus I Do” and “Here for It All” are defining moments on this album. I’d even go as far as to say that they make the album. These are not just two of the best songs on this album, two of Mariah’s best songs.

Mariah Carey - Here for It All | Gamma

Aside from the final two songs on the album — the greatest thing about Here for It All is that it shows that Mariah is not complacent when it comes to her sound, and this was one of the strengths of Caution. Mariah continues to share a curiosity and willingness to try new sounds at a point in her career where she could easily just not bother. Here for It All sees Mariah continue to push the boundaries of her sound in really cool ways. The problem however is that these sounds and vibes don’t really connect or sit together as well as they should. And that whilst Mariah trying new sounds is admirable and really cool, she clearly isn’t a place where she is able to consistently bring her full self to each of the songs. I cannot stress enough how stark the difference is between “Jesus I Do” and “Here for It All” and every other song on the album. It’s like they were recorded at completely different points in time to everything else, and they probably were. It’s the only explanation which makes the disparity make sense.

Mariah Carey - Here for It All | Gamma

Caution really surprised me. Especially after Me. I Am Mariah. I didn’t expect Mariah to deliver the way in which she did with that album. It left me hopeful about Mariah continuing to put out albums, but was also satisfying enough that I could accept it as maybe being her last. With Here for It All, I felt this very clear sense of ‘Maybe Mariah should call it a day’. Caution had a fire to it, because Mariah knew she had to prove that she still had it, and that Me. I Am Mariah. was a blip. But Here for It All feels different. The energy with this album feels like it was born out of Mariah being pushed to put an album out, because it had been too long since her last, and somebody gassed her that she has another number 1 album and single in her. And somebody had said ‘Girl, you are more than that Christmas song. But you can’t just release an anniversary version of an old album to remind the gworls. You have to put out something new.’ But the problem is that nobody seemed to be really steering or shaping this album to be a showcase of Mariah and for it to really say something about her. And it’s unfortunate that the heart of this album and the statement pieces are in the final 2 songs. If I were in Mariah’s camp and I heard “Jesus I Do” and “Here for It All”, I honestly would have floated the idea of perhaps having the album be a contemporary Gospel album. Spirituality seems to be big on Mariah’s heart, more-so than perhaps it was at other times in her life. And there was a way to fold in all of the sounds of this album, but make the messages spiritual. She could have even done it with humour and a different framing as Beyoncé did with “Church Girl” — which to me, is a gospel song. I don’t give a fuck. Or Mariah coulda just put out another Christmas album. Either way, Here for It All needed somebody at the helm to shape into something that made sense and was a stronger statement about Mariah’s artistry. “Jesus I Do” and “Here for It All” are amazing statements about Mariah’s artistry. But album should not sit on the shoulders of 2 songs at the end of an album, no matter how good they are. But it really is a good thing that “Jesus I Do” and “Here for It All” are as good as they are, as they save this album from being completely forgettable. But in a day and age of streaming and playlists, what’s to stop people from just yanking these 2 songs and never visiting the rest of this album again?

Album highlights:
▪ Mi
▪ Confetti & Champagne
▪ I Won’t Allow It
▪ Jesus I Do 🥇
▪ Here for It All 🥈