No Rock And Roll Fun

MARIAH CAREY: WORTHY OF AN ENRON EXEC: That Mariah Carey's big comeback interview was on Tonight With Trevor McDonald at all itself speaks volumes about the relaunch of Loopy McChest's career - the desperate attempts to remake her as a credible, street artist are over, and she's now firmly back in the Celine Dion mass market, pick up a CD at Tescos with a bottle of lambrusco, background ballad segment. Not a singer any more, but just a commodity.
The interview with Big Trev was fascinating - clearly she'd been preparing her answers for quite a while, and clearly Granada had promised to treat her like a queen - MacDonald offering the claim that she was "without doubt the biggest female star in the world", something that Nicole, Madonna and the dead Princess may contest. But all the preparation couldn't stop her stumbling, speaking in half sentences and failing to actually answer the questions she was being asked. It must have been hell to edit anything coherent out of the mess, judging by what actually made it to the screen.
Someone at Tonight clearly had a sense of mischief, though, as while she tried to bluster through the claim that her MTV appearance wasn't so bad - "the actuality of what I did was nothing major" - they intercut scenes from the show which would have attracted a small crowd in a victorian show ground. Her refrences to the breakdown were confused as well - first she tried to get us to pity her - apparently, having offered her millions of dollars those evil people at EMI expected her to go and make records and videos for them, you know. "I kept saying 'I'm tired'" - did you, Mariah? If it was so bad, why didn't you just not turn up? Hand back the cash and leave? But it gets most odd when she talks about the day she was carted off. At first, she explains the ambulance being called by her mother thinking she was "tired" - now, when i was a kid, my Mum didn't ring the paramedics when I was getting knackered. Then, she's asked why if there was nothing wrong with her, she went off into rehab. Apparently, since her mother had called the ambulance "it's already going to be in the papers anyway, so I might as well go to hospital." Righto, Mariah. That makes perfect sense.
Turning to the massive pay-off from EMI, she's asked about the 1800 people who lost their jobs shortly after she walked away from the company with thirtyfive million (to say nothing of the millions more flung at trying to make something coherent out of her recording sessions.) She expresses not a single ounce of sympathy - she can't even find it say "I was sorry about all the redundancies", "I realise those people have families"; not a word. Like an enron executive, she tries to make us feel she's the one who's been wronged - "I think I've been made a fall guy for a lot..." Really, Carey? Poor you. Still, having thirty five million pounds must ease the pain there, somewhat?
Self-centred, self-serving, self-deluded. A charmless performance to promote charmbracelet. Hopefully people will remember the smug smile with which she answered the question about redundancies in her wake at EMI when they see the album on the racks at Asda. If you must buy an album like that - maybe for a relative - go for Will Young instead. At least he really needs the money.