There is so much to expect from Mariah Carey's 11th studio album: after a smashing comeback with The Emancipation of Mimi, setting her as the world's best-selling female artist of all time, and now literally surpassing King of Rock Elvis in the record for most #1's at Billboard (she now holds 18 Number Ones), and deemed to be the only artist alive which has the chance to dethrone The Beatles from their 20 Number Ones. Mariah's answer is simple and straightforward: bring out a basic formula of Physics and bolster her emancipation to the second power. E=MC2 is perhaps one of the most cleverly, and aptly, titled album in the mainstream musical industry. And perhaps, even though Mariah admits she flunked Math before, it's never an excuse to perfectly nail her Physics that pulls gravity to her latest effort. Just like Emancipation of Mimi, she follows the formula, and then transcends it into something more liberating.

In a diva fashion, she belts, croons and breathes in this album. It's not really a new Mariah, in fact, it's an evolution of the old "her" from the 90s. People state that she is trying to reassert herself from the Rihanna's and Beyonce's in the world, but sometimes people do forget that Mariah is actually set the benchmark for female-artist-feat-black-rapper collaboration technique circa her influential Daydream album, and the seminal originator that launched a thousand American Idol wannabes. In E=MC2, it's both an old and modern Mariah. Like Mimi, she starts E=MC2 with a bang in a club. "Migrate" fuses heavy synth club-RNB. Although not a T-Pain fan, this should not be the main blockade for judgment for the whole album, because what follows are definitely not disappointing. Her 18th Number One, "Touch My Body" is sexy, sultry and playful - yet never gets serious. She even tries Caribbean-Jamaican patois in "Cruise Control" with Damien Marley, a song that surprisingly works. Of course, it's never complete without ballads, and "I Stay In Love" is a lovely one, definitely a Mariah imprint.

Perhaps one of the album's greatest tracks is the 80s retro-throwback "I'm That Chick", which evocatively captures the feel-good disco vibe in the path of Jackson 5. "I'll Be Loving You Long Time" and "OOC" are also Mariah's way of letting her hair down, invigorating her musical freedom. But it's absolutely outspoken in the superb "Side Effects", actually a supposed-to-be ballad disguised in a very dark fusion of R&B with Young Jeezy, where she sings of "living in a private hell we built", and "still dealing with the side effects" - of course, referring to her ex-hubby Tommy Mottola.

With her success of Mimi's We Belong Together, she tries to reinvent the formula with her ballads in E=MC2, from "Love Story", "Thanx for Nothing", "Last Kiss" and the nicely-arranged "For The Record". However, it's in "Bye Bye" that she finds solace and summit, an amazingly written and sung track that serves as her tribute to the ones she lost along the way - also a universal message for everyone, to "all my peoples who just lost somebody". This is what you get when you cross "One Sweet Day" and "We Belong Together".

Also in Mariah style, she starts singing in a club, and ends in a church. With "I Wish You Well", she belts out her true lungs, almost as good as her old but venerated "Vanishing" in her very first album.

VERDICT:

With E=MC2, Mariah finds herself consolidated, solidified and secured. After almost two decades worth of work, she doesn't need to prove anything more. E=MC2 is better than Emancipation of Mimi, like some sequel goes, and perhaps as good as Daydream and Butterfly, along there at the top as one of her greats.


Best Tracks: Bye Bye, I'm That Chick, I Stay In Love, Side Effects, For The Record


RATING: A-