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Epic | genius.com
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Caution was ranked ninth in my Top Ten Albums I Wrote About in 2018 list, and was awarded the Midnight Merlot for Classiest Act
Good evening. Welcome to a nighttime cityscape. Elegant textures ribbon through shadowed structures. Deep indigo basslines purr and hum to the glow of softly padded synthesisers as featherweight keys glimmer high above. Contemporary trap percussion clicks and taps, a grid of traffic lights winking in time through the drizzle. They mark the hour for swaddled motorists and bedraggled pedestrians alike, flickering secrets to each other while nobody is watching.
Gone are the glamorous windswept gowns of The Emancipation of Mimi. The Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel have rekerned their flouncing cursive into chic serifs. The oversaturated horizons of Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse have been drained and dumped. Now the definitive diva gazes out through cool contours of blue, sparkling teeth bared beneath an effortless smize. This is a sleek and stylish statement of defiance: that behind the solipsism and sophistry, she is on top of her game.
A suggestion of danger twinkles in her eyes. After all, when else need one exercise caution?
It takes a consummate professional to craft an album like this: a custom blend of vulnerability and poise. The vocal pyrotechnics with which Mariah is synonymous are nowhere to be found — she barely brushes against her lacy upper octaves in order to double her velvety lower register.
So many years have passed that many have forgotten her oceanic pedigree. It was she who breached the divide between hip-hop and pop. She laid the groundwork for rap music’s mainstream appeal. She is responsible for that particular osmosis that defines the current pop landscape. Our reigning queen Beyoncé could never have ascended the steps to the throne of pop royalty if Mariah hadn’t rolled out the red carpet for Destiny’s Child. And ripples spread in all directions. Girl groups like Little Mix, heartthrobs like Troye Sivan and tastemakers like Drake are all second-generation descendants of Mariah’s pioneering.
She knows exactly who she is, and has perfectly calibrated Caution to illuminate her strengths without needless histrionics or acrobatics. Mariah interpolates confidence from start to finish: stoic repetition on ‘A No No’, silken declaration on ‘The Distance’, and glossy proposition on ‘GTFO’. ‘Giving Me Life’ and ‘Eighth Grade’ each simmer down into codas of sunkissed guitar and seraphic murmuring that would absolutely have been trimmed and abandoned on the cutting-room floor just one album cycle ago, while bonus track ‘Runway’ (which nudges the album’s svelte runtime just over forty minutes) imaginatively merges the catwalk strut with the smoothest of takeoffs.
I’m reminded of Radiohead’s recent offering of pearlescent greys and wintry whites, A Moon-Shaped Pool. They too flattened rooves and demolished stadiums, and they too rediscovered an erstwhile-unfocused subtlety.
On her fifteenth album, Mariah has nothing to prove, and therefore nothing to lose.
The tsunami has settled into a tide: less violent, less prominent, continuing nonetheless to forge the shorelines of pop.
· · ·
Good evening. Welcome to a nighttime cityscape. Elegant textures ribbon through shadowed structures. Deep indigo basslines purr and hum to the glow of softly padded synthesisers as featherweight keys glimmer high above. Contemporary trap percussion clicks and taps, a grid of traffic lights winking in time through the drizzle. They mark the hour for swaddled motorists and bedraggled pedestrians alike, flickering secrets to each other while nobody is watching.
Gone are the glamorous windswept gowns of The Emancipation of Mimi. The Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel have rekerned their flouncing cursive into chic serifs. The oversaturated horizons of Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse have been drained and dumped. Now the definitive diva gazes out through cool contours of blue, sparkling teeth bared beneath an effortless smize. This is a sleek and stylish statement of defiance: that behind the solipsism and sophistry, she is on top of her game.
A suggestion of danger twinkles in her eyes. After all, when else need one exercise caution?
It takes a consummate professional to craft an album like this: a custom blend of vulnerability and poise. The vocal pyrotechnics with which Mariah is synonymous are nowhere to be found — she barely brushes against her lacy upper octaves in order to double her velvety lower register.
So many years have passed that many have forgotten her oceanic pedigree. It was she who breached the divide between hip-hop and pop. She laid the groundwork for rap music’s mainstream appeal. She is responsible for that particular osmosis that defines the current pop landscape. Our reigning queen Beyoncé could never have ascended the steps to the throne of pop royalty if Mariah hadn’t rolled out the red carpet for Destiny’s Child. And ripples spread in all directions. Girl groups like Little Mix, heartthrobs like Troye Sivan and tastemakers like Drake are all second-generation descendants of Mariah’s pioneering.
She knows exactly who she is, and has perfectly calibrated Caution to illuminate her strengths without needless histrionics or acrobatics. Mariah interpolates confidence from start to finish: stoic repetition on ‘A No No’, silken declaration on ‘The Distance’, and glossy proposition on ‘GTFO’. ‘Giving Me Life’ and ‘Eighth Grade’ each simmer down into codas of sunkissed guitar and seraphic murmuring that would absolutely have been trimmed and abandoned on the cutting-room floor just one album cycle ago, while bonus track ‘Runway’ (which nudges the album’s svelte runtime just over forty minutes) imaginatively merges the catwalk strut with the smoothest of takeoffs.
I’m reminded of Radiohead’s recent offering of pearlescent greys and wintry whites, A Moon-Shaped Pool. They too flattened rooves and demolished stadiums, and they too rediscovered an erstwhile-unfocused subtlety.
On her fifteenth album, Mariah has nothing to prove, and therefore nothing to lose.
The tsunami has settled into a tide: less violent, less prominent, continuing nonetheless to forge the shorelines of pop.