Yet, despite the circumstances, I Am Mariah is not an album that sounds desperate. It makes an argument for Mariah letting pop stardom come as it does— or doesn't—and the record seemingly acknowledges her increasingly murky future by looking back at loves and sounds of the past. She is not Jennifer Lopez or Madonna, leaving smudged fingerprints on the zeitgeist; I Am Mariah does not bend toward the whims of the radio. The album sounds exactly, defiantly like Mariah, acknowledging her place in the pop ecosystem both implicitly and explicitly without chomping at the bit.
