After the extremely bipolar in title and content Me. I Am Mariah…The Elusive Chanteuse four years ago, it’s nice to see Mariah Carey coming back with a somewhat strangely named Caution–for there is nothing one needs to be cautious about in enjoying the seamless ability of Mariah to remain au courant while also remaining distinctly herself.
That brand of “herselfness,” one has to think at this point in her career, might be somewhat nebulous in terms of whether or not Mariah is truly unaware that she’s parodying herself and her diva antics most of the time or if the parody has become so real, she can’t find the distinction anymore. Lord knows we certainly can’t.
Thus, the perfect ironic intro to Caution is “GTFO” (her own brand of “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay“), wherein Mariah invites us into her world of Caymus bottles and hot Prince Charmings (though, no James Packer was not) that inevitably disappoint.
Featuring a backbeat reminiscent of “Don’t Forget About Us,” “Without You” still can’t compare to Mariah’s “original version” of the remake of the Badfinger song (which Carey based more on Harry Nilsson’s cover), and it’s not exactly the most convincing love song on the record. In fact the title track offers far more earnestness in its playfulness as Mariah, um, cautions, “Proceed with caution, don’t be dishonest/I need you closer to love me harder/Proceed with caution, face to face/And touch me in a different kind of way/Proceed with caution, but don’t make me wait/Before too long it just might fade away.” In other words, she’s a skittish motherfucker, and she needs to be treated in just the right way to believe your love is real.
Bearing this in mind, “A No, No” is a loose homage to one of the people closest to her who betrayed her: former manager Stella Bulochnikov (who famously appeared on the less than famous reality show, Mariah’s World). Yet at the same time, it still works seamlessly as a diss track not just against past lovers but all men, really, who attempt to make anything happen with her. Sampling from Lil’ Kim’s 1997 track, “Crush On You,” featuring Lil’ Cease and Notorious B.I.G., Carey deliberately hones in on the repackaged lines, “He’s a slut, he’s a hoe, he’s a freak/Got a different girl every day of the week,” to which Carey must definitely say, “A no no” to on behalf of womankind everywhere. That fuckboy shit simply won’t fly if you want to be with the type of girl accustomed to Dior and Alaïa.
With an album cover that looks like an homage to a night out clubbing in the New York of the 90s (when Carey herself was at one of her peaks), “The Distance” featuring Ty Dolla $ign–who will legit appear on just about any pop singer’s song you ask him to–is just the sort of rhythmic bump and grind one would have heard in the heyday of this era. Strangely sampling the opening, “S-P-I-R-I-T, it’s great to see/We got it, the spirit/Hey, hey, let’s hear it,” from Bring Me the Horizon’s 2015 “Happy Song,” Mariah–or at least her producers–proves she’s got her hands in all genres even still. In fact, before Carey was briefly avoidant regarding questions about her race (it wasn’t really until 2009 that she got quite candid about her background on, somewhat fittingly, Lopez Tonight), she unspokenly embraced the black part of herself by single-handedly reinventing the wheel of melding the pop and R&B sound (much to her chagrin, however, it has to be said that Madonna did it first–sans any “black side” other than being Italian–on Bedtime Stories in 1994 before Mariah “deigned” to do it on Butterfly in 1997).
And it’s a sensibility that shines through most brilliantly on “Giving Me Life” featuring Slick Rick and Blood Orange (though, sonically, this is more a result of Blood Orange’s insights into what makes a simultaneously innovative and sentient track). As something that could fit in just as easily onto Negro Swan, the lyric, “Feeling myself like I’m Norma Jeane,” in truth, seems more like something Blood Orange came up with, in addition to producing the affecting backbeat itself. The wistfulness of “Thinkin’ ’bout when we were seventeen” also smacks of Blood Orange’s reflective style. “Livin’ like Babs ’cause it’s evergreen” is more believable as a credit to Mariah’s songwriting considering her longtime admiration for the fellow New Yorker (as expressed on The View).
The slowed down piano of “One Mo’ Gen” (that means “one more time,” basically, if you’re too white to interpret the overt linguistic translation) is ideal for the track’s subject matter, which is, of course, sexual pleasure–being broken off slowly and steadily. Speaking to both Mariah’s natural myriad of personalities, as well as how good sex has made her go somewhat schizophrenic, she sings, “Addicted to you, come support my habit/Third person, yeah she gotta have it,” in between making innuendos like, “And once we lit this towering inferno/The flame keeps burning higher the harder we go/And the temperature is rising, crack a window” and “Did you like when I put my lips there?”
Keeping the slow tempo going, “8th Grade” (when most people except me have already had their first sexual awakening), as Mariah puts it, “reflects on the melancholic feeling I used to have as a kid.” Considering so much of that melancholy as an adolescent comes from the pain of a first crush–usually one unreturned–“8th Grade” is an appropriate title to pair with lyrics such as, “Nothin’ to lose/Never no pressure/Just put yourself into my shoes/I’m not your world/No, I’m not your life.” And while it might be painful to know that you are not someone’s world as they are yours, in time, as Mariah did, you’ll realize, “I’m a confirmation, should you feel unsure/I’m that security when you’re insecure.” In other words, have some fucking confidence in your worth, and then perhaps, when it’s already too late, the object of your affection will as well.
Laying the hip hop/R&B tinge on thick again for “Stay Long Love You” featuring Gunna, the motif is decidedly in the vein of other classic “thug luv” anthems like Beyonce and Jay-Z’s “’03 Bonnie and Clyde, Fabolous and Amerie’s “Into You” and Fat Joe and Ashanti’s “What’s Luv?” That said, it’s not exactly ideal for an evolved portrait (we’ll get to that song in a second) of gender roles as Gunna offers, “Hot as mama’s cookin’ in the kitchen during summer/’Cause if you want it I could serve it, come and get it/Won’t you let me clean the plate and do the dishes?” On the other hand, at least he says, “I got your back, I wouldn’t front/I came that night, you know I want it/I wake up to you in the morning/And eat that pussy up for lunch.” Unfortunately, that last line is immediately ruined with the Greek shit that is, “And I take care you like a son.”
“Portrait” the final song (unless you have the Japanese version, which ends with “Runway,” a Skrillex-produced ditty) serves to accent the entire point of Caution: to show, once more, Mariah’s versatility in range between uptempo R&B and lush balladry. Speaking on the various ills of constantly being in the spotlight (yes, it’s a real diva problem), Mariah asks at the outset, “Where do I go from here? How do I disappear?/Here beyond the looking glass/Somewhere off the beaten path/Heartache never seems to pass, just lasts.” It’s not all doom and gloom, however, for this is the same woman with the album title Rainbow, constantly believing that there must be one after every storm. So she consoles, “Yes I know that tomorrow comes/So I’ll be here when you rise/Stay here close and the moment will subside.” In many ways, it’s a sentiment similar to the one Britney was speaking on in “Lucky,” with the philosophical demand, “If there’s nothing missing in my life, then why do these tears come at night?”
Again finding herself speaking in the third person as she resolves, “For the finale, she can float around effortlessly/And dream away the hours in her mind,” this automatic reflex is yet another demonstration of the pop star’s (as an overall abstraction) need to bifurcate herself into two entities: the stage presence and the real person. Somewhere in between the two incarnations, we find a little of both on Caution.
