Review: Mariah Carey and Her Can’t-Look-Away Debut in Las Vegas

 

Review: Mariah Carey and Her Can’t-Look-Away Debut in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS — You watch the crash because you want to see how it will end: near miss or carnage, relief or horror, laughter or tears. Part of the appeal is the feeling of helplessness – you are a viewer, but not an agent. Whatever happens, you’ll be affected, but you can’t chart the course. And looking away is never the right choice.

In the case of late-period Mariah Carey, it’s the high notes that you can’t avert your eyes — and ears — from. When she began her career in the early 1990s, she was capable of outrageous vocal feats, singing whole octaves higher than almost everyone else, stringing together dog-pitch bleats into ecstatic runs. She brought something superhuman into the otherwise grounded world of pop-soul.

But the notes have not been there for Ms. Carey of late: Some performances have been markedly off-base, the subject of intense scrutiny. Ms. Carey is still durable, and sometimes excellent, but her once-transcendent voice is like decaying manufacturing machinery: It still churns, but the product might be polished or dinged. You don’t know until it happens.