#1's

I FEAR Mariah Carey. Superficially, she might seem like a purveyor of saccharine bilge like 'Hero', whose message seems wholesome enough: that if you vacate your mind of all intelligent thought, flutter your eyelashes and wish hard, sweet babies and honey will follow.



But that's bullshit. You don't sell 90million records unless you reserve that fluffybunny stuff for your sucker fans. To attain 13 Number One singles, all featured on this anthology, you gotta be cold-eyed, hard-boiled and have balls of steel. Noticed how in interviews, Mariah sounds more deep-throated than on record? She knows what she's about. She'll do whatever it takes. And her most fiendish weapon is the duet. If the MOR market needs servicing, she'll duet with Luther or Whitney and outdo them in the soulful gurgle stakes ("Eeeooowaarghoourgh") gurgle for gurgle. If her contemporary edge needs sharpening, she'll hang with the Wu-Tang Clan ('Fantasy'), fluttering about making twittery, orgasmic noises like Ol' Dirty Bastard just deflowered her ("Eeurrgghow! Oo!"). If you're big in the R&B charts, like Brian McKnight, she'll be in there ('Whenever You Call') like a heat-seeking parasite. She don't give a fuck. She destroys competition by sucking them dry and spitting them out. Heard much from Boyz II Men since she cut 'One Sweet Day' with them?



Mariah Carey is She Who Must Be Bought At All Costs. Be very afraid...