Mariah Carey

Columbia Records cannot be accused of stinting on the two-CD Remixes set, which has a running time over two hours and 20 minutes. Mariah Carey's former label, before she moved to Virgin and then Island Def Jam (where she recorded under her own MonarC imprint), has made a point of licensing extra tracks from those subsequent corporate associations, as well as borrowing a track from J Records in compiling a survey of the various remixes of Carey's recordings. This means that the collection stretches as far back as 1991 for the "12' Club Mix" of "Emotions" and all the way up to 2003 for the "So So Def Remix" of "The One." The result is a kind of history of remixes over that 12-year period. Of course, the term "remix" is, as usual, an excessively modest one to describe what has been done to the original recordings. A variety of remix producers have not only manipulated the original tracks, but also added various elements of their own to the point that, in many cases, the songs as initially heard are virtually unrecognizable. Every now and then, one hears a snatch of lyric or a familiar musical excerpt, but for the most part these are dance-oriented musical productions with only a nodding resemblance to Carey's records. Of course, Carey herself is always in the thick of the reinvention. The first disc contains more danceable material, while the second is given over to tracks reconstructed from a rap perspective and is filled with guest appearances that include Snoop Dogg, O.D.B., Da Brat, Missy Elliott, and, in the album-closing duet, "I Know What You Want," Busta Rhymes, who is actually billed in front of Carey. A large part of Carey's massive success of the 1990s came from her relationship to the dancefloor, and this compilation shows what her music sounded like there. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide