Music purists can entertain themselves all they like by debating whether this is “true” classical music. The rest of us can revel in what is possibly the best album of the year.
This intense story-driven format lets her sound sharper, smarter, and more clear-eyed than before. .... Allen sounds newly alive in the contradictions we loved her for: acid-tongued and soft-hearted, ironic and sincere, broken again but alright, still.
There’s a lot of human heart pumping beneath the bangers here. Be prepared for your mascara/fire-pit kohl to get smudgy. Because It’s Not That Deep actually sounds like the work of a woman who’s done some serious digging in order to party this hard.
Deadbeat starts intimate and confessional, with what might be the best opening track of the year. .... From there, the tracks flow and blend hypnotically, tied together by the piano. Sometimes a song’s coherence is sacrificed to tranceyness, but hooks keep bobbing to the surface like lava lamp bubbles.
The Life of a Showgirl might be one of her most uneven records, but she’s as compelling as she’s ever been – the showgirl, the ringmaster and the circus all in one.
Here for It All doesn’t exactly shake things up, but it’s a pretty, polished affair all the same, Carey sitting comfortably on top of her sonic throne and uninterested in relinquishing it any time soon.
