E=MC²
等待三年，天后玛丽亚凯莉(Mariah Carey)终于宣布在四月中发行她的第11张个人大碟《E=MC²》，至于灵感正是来自于爱因斯坦最著名的相对论"(E) Emancipation = (MC) Mariah Carey (2) To the second power"，同时也巧妙结合她名字的英文缩写。新歌"Touch My Body"在全美电台播出不到一个月，已经缔造8千2百万人次收听的惊人成绩。
爱因斯坦发明“相对论”改变全人类的生活模式，天后玛丽亚凯莉创造全新专辑《E=MC²》，将以相同力量震撼全球乐坛。唱片史上最重要的一刻，就是现在。
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E=MC² (an abbreviation of Emancipation=Mariah Carey²) is the eleventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey. It was released in the United States on April 15, 2008 by Island Records. The singer began recording the album in 2007 in Anguilla, after writing and composing most of its material during and after her 2006 Adventures of Mimi Tour. Carey worked with several notable songwriters and producers during the course of the project, including Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, Stargate, The-Dream, Tricky Stewart, Scott Storch and Danja.
The album revealed a more personal and intimate side of the singer, illustrated in its declarative theme of emancipation from her previous marriage, and from her personal and professional setbacks. Although it shared similar vocal production as well as an inclination to her signature pop and R&B ballads, the album also encompassed a variety of dance-oriented and uptempo styles; it was meant to be a continuation, or second part of her tenth album, The Emancipation of Mimi. Carey collaborated with a number of artists on the album, including T-Pain, Damian Marley and Young Jeezy. Though considered by critics very similar to the formula its predecessor had been built on, E=MC² included other genres she had never explored, such as reggae, and her continued recording of gospel-influenced hymns.
E=MC² was generally well received by music critics, with many complimenting the record's broad genre influences, and musical and production styles. Some critics, however, felt that the album was too similar to The Emancipation of Mimi, and didn't offer anything new from the formula. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with opening week sales of 463,000 copies; the highest first-week sales of Carey's career. It opened inside the top-five on the albums chart in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, as well as the European chart. The album finished as the 26th best-selling album of 2008 throughout the globe, and as of July 2009, achieved worldwide sales of over 2.5 million copies worldwide.
Four singles were commission in promotion of the album. The album's lead single, "Touch My Body", became Carey's eighteenth chart topper on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the solo artist with the most number one singles in United States history, surpassing the record held by Elvis Presley. Additionally, it gave Carey her 79th week atop the chart, tying Presley for most weeks at number one. It achieved strong worldwide charting, peaking within the top five of the singles charts in Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. "Bye Bye" served as the album's second release. Although hailed by critics, and expected to have achieved large commercial success, the song stalled at number nineteen on the Hot 100, and managed to chart weakly internationally. Both the third and fourth singles, "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time" and "I Stay in Love" failed to garner success in any prominent music market. (wiki)
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by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Two weeks prior to the April 2008 release of E=MC2 -- Mariah Carey's tenth album and the sequel to her big 2005 comeback, The Emancipation of Mimi -- the diva broke Elvis Presley's record of being the solo artist with the most number one singles on the Billboard charts. Lots of publicity surrounded "Touch My Body" reaching number one, as well it should: busting an Elvis record is always news, but this particular record served team Mariah well, as it paints Carey as being a diva who's bigger and better than the rest. An unintentional side effect of this very record is that it also tacitly pointed out that Mariah has been around a long, long time: 18 years, to be exact, roughly two years shy of the two decades that it took Elvis to establish his record. Unlike Elvis -- or any other major artist who's been around for two decades, for that matter -- Carey seems determined not to look back, to exist in some kind of eternal now, never acknowledging that she has a past, unless she's wielding her divorce from her ex-husband/ex-record label chief Tommy Mottola for some kind of sympathy, something she does once again here via vague allusions to naïveté and "violent times" on "Side Effects." Mariah refers to that separation so often that it's hard not to think of it as something recent but it happened a long, long time ago -- well over a decade prior to the release of E=MC2, to be precise -- but as the separation was the pivot point for Carey's career, it's easy to see why she keeps returning to it, even if the emotional heft of her singing about the pain has long since diminished.
After that separation, Carey restyled herself as a relentlessly modern R&B diva, chasing every passing trend in a given year, a move that often kept her on the top of the charts -- apart from the post-millennial stumble of Glitter, of course -- but had the side effect of making Mariah a musician who became progressively less mature with each passing year, culminating in the hazy soft-porn fantasies of "Touch My Body," the single that broke Elvis' longstanding record and will likely only be remembered for that achievement. Like so much of Emancipation and E=MC2, which is a virtual replica of its predecessor in almost every way, "Touch My Body" is all about sound, rhythm, and texture and not so much about song, something that helps sustain Mariah Carey's run at the top the charts, but something that also pushes melodic hooks, and in the process singing, into the background. As Carey's multi-octave voice has always been her calling card, the one thing that even her biggest critics have grudgingly acknowledged as her unassailable strength, this is a little odd -- especially on the T-Pain duet "Migrate," where she succumbs to auto-tune -- but it not only makes Mariah modern, it also camouflages her slightly diminishing range, so it does have a dual purpose. Sometimes all this production is good and occasionally it's married to a full-fledged, hooky song, as on the excellent "I'm That Chick," a sleek slice of Off the Wall disco that's nearly giddy in its energy and melody, and perhaps on "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time," which also has a lightness that so much of E=MC2 lacks. Everything else pushes the rhythm and bass to the forefront and mixes Mariah into the middle, so it becomes a wash of sound -- sound that is designed to be fashionable, but like so much fashion, it's tied to the time and dates quickly. Which is why it's misleading to judge Mariah based on her new record of possessing the most number one singles, as she's not about longevity, she's about being permanently transient, a characteristic E=MC2 captures all too well.