Words that fail.

Mimi's New Kotex Advert...

We know this is utterly dreadful but it's just SO fascinating and wonderful to us. Maybe it's our addiction to the cringe, but the above video speaks volumes of fabulousness to Shiny & New writers everywhere. Where. To. Begin.

First off Mariah's acrylic wig, in this 'vid', is a beautiful creature in its own RIGHT. It has a life of its own. Every different shot of her features a hot new styling that is just in a league of its own in terms of 'hairstyles'. We can't even believe we just called those magical masterworks simple 'hairstyles'. They are acts of genius and God.

Secondly Nicki Minaj's accent is a rare exotic rose in the garden of accents. WHAT IS IT? When she spits the words "L-O-L, smiley face, have a nice day" she sounds half-Australian, half-cockney. She pronounces 'nice' as 'NOICE-UH' and the 'pent' of 'penthouse' as "PEINT". We're not taking the piss here, it is a genuinely ravishing set of pronunciations and we heart it.

MiMi's "Obsessed" Video

There is always a small part of me that genuinely looks forward to a new Mariah Carey video. Not out of a genuine curiosity concerning her latest musical direction, nor a sincere love of her idiosyncratic voice or even an interest in her unique take on new R'n'B trends; it's more of a grim and twisted fascination. Whilst most popular music artists expertly manipulate music videos to publicise their latest "reinvention" or their radical, new musical dabblings, and in the process attempt to dispell any public feelings of indifference or boredom, Mariah's visual history has been a more sedate affair. There have been no odd, unflattering hairstyles, no dalliances with sitars or tubas, no videos directed by obscure European artists featuring gilded tigers vomiting crows... or something similar.

Instead, she has primarily focused on placing as much distance between her past and her present selves as possible - that nineties Mariah who had a mane of curls, slightly frumpy clothes, cheap shoes and wore lipstick made out of treacle and cocoa powder. They involve a never-ending pursuit of "glamour", each subsequent video attempting to feature more butterflies, more make-up, diamonds, dazzle, flamboyance and short skirts than its predecessor. She's a bit like Joceyln Wildenstein: in a constant state of alteration and transition, endlessly striving for the smoothest vinyl face available. Pretty soon she'll be the colour of mahogany, clad in a cling film mini-dress swishing polyester hair extensions that reach her ankles.

So, here she is, MiMi, the colour of a scotch egg, reclining on a couch showcasing the most aggressive cleavage in pop music today in a New York wind machine factory. Also note her ingenious and subtle impersonation of an obsessed male fan, a role which she tackles with typical aplomb and with a hippy's minge plastered to her face.

(You can watch it here - Ed)

Notes on an Imperfect Photoshop Job

• The middle Mariah doesn't look like Mariah.
• What do you call a Mariah with three heads!? A Marydrad?
• The cut at the front of her dress looks like a bib.
• Or a hospital gown (!).
• We prefer Brooke Hogan's album cover.
• Her boob shadows: terrifying.
  

Best lyric of the year so far...

Despite not actually having a chorus and featuring some of the most dated production this year, Mariah's bloated ego and sense of importance lifts this from being execrable to being both listenable and addictive... As for that best lyric, it's below:

"It must be the weed, it must be the E"

Yes, Bat For Lashes, Patrick Wolf, Vienna Teng, Alela Diane, Tori Amos and Marilyn Manson can all retire because NONE of their lyrics match the witty, delicate beauty of the above singlet.

A rare treasure

By this we mean, fond readers, a Mariah Carey song which doesn't make you want to go to the nearest kitchen, take a hand-held food processor and apply it, switched on, to your ears. Instead of warbling about butterflies, aspartame and inappropriate touching, Mary-Ahh seems to be talking about control and female domination and such. We like it when people who don't have a spine at least put up the pretence that they do.



Vair Janetjacksonwhenshewasgood no?
If you refuse to listen to the song at all, please do so if not purely to hear La Carrey 'rap'. Give her a break, it was 1993.

Speaking of Beyoncé...

Didn't Beyoncé just star in a film called Obsessed? Our instincts (and the internet) tell us she did! In which case: minus originality points for Mariah, not that "Obsessed" would have been a particularly thrilling song title anyway. Since her album's going to have such a hot mess name (Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel) we were hoping for a lead single called "The Butterfly Wings of Hope" or "Dolphin of Destiny (Rides Again)". "Obsessed" just doesn't cut it, love. As for the image, it neither offends nor pleases us - it's just more of the same, isn't it? Yes, readers, yes it is.

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel...

The delicate and fragile blue whale of eternal music Mariah Carey, has decided that a good name for her new album would be: Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. We know. We confused you somewhat with the Brooke Hogan artwork. A comic juxtaposition, if you will. We dread to think what the actual front cover will depict. Perhaps Mariah reconstructing the pose of Archangel Uriel. Or Urinal. We're joking, clearly. But knowing Mariah this is going to be one, hot mess and we suggest that you stick around and find out.

This Is Your Career (In Artwork): Pop Divas

We thought we'd try a new thing where we look at artists' careers through their album artwork. That's about it. It's a simple concept and we're going to dive right in. First we're going to look at Female Pop Divas (male ones are a whole different story) and we've chosen 5 of the biggest in terms of worldwide success and/or Icon Factor (a made-up factor that we made up).

To start with we're going to look at Mariah. Notice the muted pallet, the abundance of sepia and noire. The close ups. The soft focus. The pink. The sparkles. THE HAIR. Mariah has never been our cup of tea, and none of the writers for Shiny & New particularly like her, despite soft spots for certain songs of hers. We havent got much more to say about this other than that it reflects her melodramatic, yet essentially boring music. None of these album covers are particulary iconic... I mean, they're memorable or recognisable but not ICONIC. On top of that, most of them aren't actually that aesthetically pleasing, either.

Next we move on to the underdog of global female pop icons. Despite having had briefly HUGE success in the 80s, her continued success has been sputtering and sporadic. In terms of how iconic these covers are, well... they're NOT that iconic. If you asked most people of the street, or even most music fans, they'd struggle to remember what Cyndi's album covers look like. Nevertheless there's some beautiful photography, and the offbeat, colourful designs reflect her music and style as Madonna's twisted little sister brilliantly.

Which brings us to Koylie Minoigue (the Austroilian pronunciation). Kylie is the poor man's Madonna, and despite being massively famous worldwide, still isn't all that big in America. Despite finding Kylie weak, boring, emotionless, flaccid and puppet-like we have a MASSIVE penchant for her music, much of which is really brillo pads pop and electro. The typography on the album covers is ANYTHING but unique (has she ever stuck to ONE logo?) and some of the earlier coverart is EXECRABLE at best, but the bland but stylish images sort of capture the essence of Kylie, don't they?

Our next study is Janet Jackson, a deeply mysterious woman, who throughout her career has managed to flit her way between deeply brilliant and meaningful pop and soul, and completely forgettable tripe. Her album artwork sort of reflects this. There's not much consistency, but strangely they sit quite nicely next to eachother. It's quite odd to connect the artist who is sexily and broadly smiling like a catalogue model in some shots, with the more troubled looking lady inhabiting the more iconic shots (from Rhythm Nation, Control and The Velvet Rope). In terms of how Iconic these cover squares are... these are probably the most iconic yet. But that's because we haven't covered....

Madonna. The Queen of Queens. She needs no introduction. Her album artwork speaks for itself. Every single one of these album covers is Iconic, and not just because she's the most famous person on the planet. They are all brilliant album covers. The only consistency is that they're consistently brilliant and each one perfectly represents what the music on the album sounds like. One of our writers might complain that she doesn't stick with one logo, but when the rest of the design is this good, you really CANNOT complain.

Long Live The Queen!!!

To summarise the mission statement of Shiny & New, in a video.