The Guardian / ** stars

"I still believe that after every storm eventually a rainbow appears,"
gushes Mariah Carey on the inner sleeve of her ninth album, with all the
raw emotional integrity of a Hallmark Get Well Soon card. Schadenfreude
enthusiasts will have no problems reading between the lines. Carey's
last album, Glitter, was released after the star's much-publicised nervous
breakdown; when the record and the accompanying film sank like lead
weights, Virgin, having signed Carey to a ludicrous $80m deal, promptly paid
$28m just to get shot of her.

After a storm like that, Charmbracelet needs to be one hell of a rainbow.
In fact, it is more a PR exercise than anything else, sweeping her
recent travails under a glossy carpet of old-fashioned, melismatic soul
and hygienic pop-rap. For a diva such as Carey, bred to believe that the
show must always go on, the only possible response to career meltdown
appears to be to keep smiling and act like nothing happened. Whether millions
of record-buyers will share her selective amnesia is debatable.