Stay pressed tbh. Ariana’s management team (Scooter Braun in particular) is 100% responsible for this problem. Scooter was the one who, on radio tours for Ariana’s first album, constantly referred to Ariana as “a young Mariah.” Ariana’s management team purposely crafted her image after 90’s Mariah (wholesome, demure girl with a big voice). Additionally, it is no coincidence that some of the producers on Ariana’s first album (notably Babyface and Cory Rooney) had worked with Mariah in the 90’s.
And let’s be frank: Ariana covered Emotions as a marketing ploy to draw further comparisons to Mariah. I mean, the thirst was real as fuck. She might as well have screamed, “LOOK AT ME! I AM THE NEXT MARIAH!” from the rooftop of her parents’ Boca Raton McMansion.
Furthermore, what the fuck does Ariana know about R&B? You’re telling me this upper-middle class white theater girl from suburban Florida was SO passionate about R&B music that she up and decided to record 2 R&B albums? No, henny.
Reminder: her first album took 3 years to finish, and in the beginning the album was pure bubblegum pop. It wasn’t until her record label, which was dissatisfied with the album’s direction, hired producers to come in and completely change the sound that it became an R&B record, or as Ariana called it, “Urban 90’s music.” Ugh.
It’s disingenuous, insincere, and borderline insulting. Mariah is a pure artist. She is involved in every facet of her music - writing, producing, arranging, mixing, mastering - from inception to completion. Her Butterfly album is an R&B masterpiece; nobody will ever come close to the lyrical and musical perfection on that album. But Ariana and her handlers tried. They hired some top-notch R&B writers and producers to try to emulate something Mariah would’ve done herself, and they urged Ariana to use a bit more melisma, screech out a couple whistle notes (even if it meant she couldn’t speak for 3 days afterwards), and add a few more breathy trills to her notes.
But, in the end, every human being with a brain knew what she was doing, and, I dunno, it all just seemed a little….
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