Old Times Still The Best Times

Guess this shall be a common fixture! This is STRIPES day, the second edition of Themed Tuesdays following the inaugural Wee Day previously :D

Themed Tuesdays rock!

Okay onto my story of the week:

There you go.. Mariah Carey's latest album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200, selling 170,000 copies. Not since Charmbracelet (before The Emancipation of Mimi - 2005's best-selling album, and E=MC2 - her highest debut ever with 463,000 copies sold in the first week) has her album not debut at #1 on the charts.

What's more, she lags behind Barbra Streisand and Paramore. Has the diva really lost her lustre? My bet is far from it. Although Memoirs isn't her best effort (TEOM is still my fave of her recent releases), but it certainly is her most personal. E=MC2 is fun and mass-produced, but Memoirs will let fans have a taste of why we fell in love with Mariah in the first place.

From the brilliant opening Betcha Gon' Know (the prologue), the mood was laid for the rest of this confessional album. Some netizens have complained that the next 3 or 4 songs that followed sounded similar (disregarding the slightly grating Obsessed), but I preferred to think that it was a themed-album that was a melding of slow jams.

Give it a few more spins and you'll be addicted. H.A.T.E. U (abbreviation for Having A Typical Emotional Upset) is the stand-out of these R&B smoothies - with silky vocals and the showcase of her trademark whistle.. this is a herald to the glorious days of The Voice. Incidentally, this is going to be the third single to be released after I Want To Know What Love Is, which is on heavy repeat on my playlist.

Other tracks that are gaining fan popularity are Ribbon (old-school Mariah groove with modern arrangement), Angels Cry (inspirational) and Standing O (very Akon-ish).

Who can interlace modern R&B-pop with belting vocals? Nobody does it like Mariah Carey, let's hope she tops the charts next week!
~


Pop culture video screening is still the best way to teach a lesson, IMHO. =D COM201's Dr Vivien deserves credit for screening my all-time favourite TV show: FRIENDS as part of the communications lecture. And Susan Amy did good by showing the full-length satirical movie, Thank You For Smoking, to us. Not only was it extremely apt for the PR topic, it was welcome entertainment =))

And then there is Media in America. Remember that Facebook-digging incident that presented my guitar heroes pic to everyone? This week, we throroughly enjoyed the lecture when he screened this vid when he was touching on broadcast media in U.S.:

A classic scene from "I Love Lucy", the founder of situational-comedy, aka sitcoms:


Love my course and some modules :P

Take care, people!