Mariah Carey has proven to be the most elusive chanteuse. Her latest album, “Me I Am Mariah, The Elusive Chanteuse” has crashed and burned. Fast. Despite great reviews, “Me I am Mariah” is now number 157 on iTunes and 75 amazon.com. It was released on May 27th, just two and a half weeks ago. Saleswise, the album has sold a paltry 75,000 copies through this past Sunday and probably not too many more after that.
The failure of “Me I Am Mariah” should be a lesson for everyone in her age group and generation still recording and releasing music. Jennifer Lopez should be watching all of this very carefully. Carey took off five years after her last album, and even that CD was not a smash hit. Carey’s last real hit album was “The Emancipation of Mimi” in 2005.
But “Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel” (2009) had no hit singles and was already signalling that Carey had aged out of the hit pop radio market. “Memoirs” sold only 550,000 copies, a far cry from its predecessors.
Now Carey faces a total write off of “Me I Am” unless DefJam can figure out a way to resuscitate it. But even electric shock paddles may not be enough. Mariah needs to drop the Diva act (including campy stuff like being photographed on the subway in a tight fitting ball gown). Her best bet is a knock out, heart string pulling video for the George Michael gospel song “One More Try,” or something witty and self-parodying for the upbeat “Thirsty.”
