Mariah Carey Performs Medley @ American Idol

You better believe Mariah Carey was going to work that vast back catalogue of hers when she finally hit the American Idol stage to perform! With a vast chunk of the home audience probably being too young to remember Mariah's glory days in the 1990's, this was a smart move by the Diva to educate them (and any haters) as to just why she's deservedly sitting at the judges' table. The fact that it'll lift sales of her entire catalouge I'm sure had nothing to do with this decision(!)

Having had the original Idol audience cleared so that she could be surrounded by her faithful and supportive "Lambily", Mimi began the medley with her début single Vision of Love. From the first few seconds of the video you could see she wasn't entirely comfortable on the stage, but she seemed to relax- never completely- as the performance went on. Luckily the voice was surer than her demeanour, with her tone being particularly impressive throughout! Sure, there was some constriction and pushing at the top her range, but overall her voice sounded to be in great condition! [I'll leave it to you guys to discuss any lipping/editing/dubbing- I'm not going to risk getting shanked by Lambs today!]

However, it wasn't the smoothest of medleys, with too many songs being crammed into too short a time slot. As a result of this sausage-stuffing mentality, the whole performance felt rushed, and latest single #Beautiful- which needed the hardest push- was the biggest causality of this disjointed approach. But what really got my goat was the awkward and just darn ugly transitions that occurred between the hits! Surely they could have found a way to integrate the songs better! Perhaps it was all very last minute.com- which might go some way to explaining the general uneasiness of the whole thing.

Still, it was great to hear Mimi's voice sounding so strong. Bring on the (rumoured) world tour!!

Thoughts?