Mimi, or at least the sound of her emancipation, sounds remarkably like , too, working a similarly sultry, low-key, polished club groove. It's not a bad idea, particularly because could use any change at this point, and it's not executed all that badly either, as all 14 tracks -- heavy on mid-tempo cuts and big ballads, with a few harder dance tunes featuring big-name guest rappers scattered along the way -- all follow the same deliberately smoky, late-night template. . Ironically enough, a big reason why doesn't sound as good as those '90s albums is that never sounds like herself on this record. When she's not sounding like , she sounds desperate to be part of the waning bling era, dropping product placements for Bacardi, Calgon, and Louis Vuitton, or bragging about her house in Capri and her own G4, all of which sounds a little tired and awkward coming from a 35-year-old woman in her 15th year of superstardom.
Here, apart from those tracks, the producers camouflage her voice in a number of ways, usually involving putting the groove and the sound of the production in front of the vocals. . . . . . .
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