Mariah Carey is synonymous with grandiosity, whether she’s showing off her five-octave vocal range, arriving on the stage of Caesar’s Palace via Jet Ski, strenuously denying her knowledge of Jennifer Lopez, or simply sighing “dah-ling” in a way that only a diva could. That penchant for over-the-topness can be a blessing or a curse, but it’s always been there, whether it was used to propel “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to holiday-season ubiquity or to drag the 12th season of “American Idol” into a morass of Nicki Minaj-directed snippiness.
But Caution, Carey’s 15th album and first in four years, takes a different tack; instead, it derives its power from its central figure’s chilled-out attitude. It opens with plush synth tones before Mariah’s purr floats in from the heavens, ready to scratch out a former “knight in shining armor” using poison-pen lyrics. It’s the sweetest-sounding “please take your things and go” track since Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable,” using Carey’s breathy head voice and robust belt in tandem as a way of underscoring the lyrics’ take-no-shit stance—a no-nonsense attitude that gives much of Caution its lightness.
The roster of producers on Caution is varied, and at times surprising—“Hold On, We’re Going Home” producer Nineteen85 helps make “GTFO” sound similarly plush; Timbaland assists behind the boards and at the end of the sparkling “8th Grade,” engaging in a playful back-and-forth that recalls a gentler version of his “Promiscuous” parrying; and Skrillex and Poo Bear, who collaborated on tracks for Justin Bieber, are partially behind the calmly celebratory Ty Dolla $ign feature “The Distance,” a gorgeous addition to the anniversary-celebration canon that isn’t even dinged by Ty’s call-out of online commenters.
Of course, Carey has a producer credit on every track. Those credits on pop albums can feel like the music-business equivalent of vanity license plates, but the Caution’s cohesion does speak to an overall guiding ideal. It’s so strong that it persists through the closing ballad, “Portrait,” which frames Carey’s passionate description of her inner struggles in emphatic piano and glossy strings, as well as the dreamy, guitar-god coda appended to the simmering “Giving Me Life,” a bittersweet look back that glides through Barbra Streisand references and an extended face-off between Carey and hip-hop demigod Slick Rick before entering its final phase. Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange), a student of slow jams, is Carey’s co-producer here, and his ability to sustain a sumptuous groove then explode it into something completely unexpected clashes with Carey’s controlled charm in a spectacular way.