Mariah Carey hit the stage for her first live performance since the birth of "Dem Babies"- yes, I'm purposely ignoring the T-Mobile "holographic" performance from November of last year. Part of an eight song set for Jimmy Kimmel‘s "Plot Your Escape", the performance of Shake It Off was nabbed from Ustream by a Youtuber- Facebook and MSN noises included. The full set airs tomorrow [Saturday, March 3rd] on US television.
The thing that really struck me about this performance, other than the brilliant arrangement, is how much Mariah played with the melody of the song. Usually Mariah sticks as rigidly as possible to the recorded version, but here she seemed less concerned with recreating that vocal, and more about what felt right at that moment. To me this is a really exciting development, and I hope the subsequent songs from this set shows her expanding on this!
Let's not beat around the bush though, the top notes at the end were lipped, you could see at 4.08 where she starts lip-synching too early, and the subsequent annoyed look shot in someone's direction off camera. Also there was that classic Mariah trick of turning away from the camera, when miming the notes, at 4.25. However, she hit a resonant D5 effortlessly at 1.01 so I'm not worried about the voice.
I can not wait for the full set to be aired, especially considering how at ease and relaxed Mariah appeared on stage. This feels to be the start of an interesting period, and growth, in Mariah Carey and her career.
Viva La Carey
