Music & Concerts
New Mariah album ‘Caution’ hovers around late-career sonic sweet spot
It’s no masterpiece and is a little samey throughout, yet rich texture, current production keeps things moving on tight, 10-cut effort


The new Mariah Carey record ‘Caution’ is a little samey throughout, yet rich textures, current production keep things moving. (Photo courtesy Epic)
Mariah Carey is pretty consistent. She’s never really made an all-out dud. Even the most nominal of fans can always find something enjoyable on her many studio albums. It’s just that sometimes they’re so clunkily and pretentiously titled, many don’t bother to check them out.
In stark contrast to snappily titled early releases like “Daydream” (1995), “Butterfly” (1997) and “Rainbow” (1999) came more recent efforts such as “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel” (2009) and the ludicrously titled “Me. I Am Mariah … the Elusive Chanteuse” (2014), the lowest-selling album of her long career.
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover or an album by its title (“Angel” and “Chanteuse” both had worthy moments) but thankfully we can get past all that titular tomfoolery with “Caution,” (**1/2 out of four) her Epic label debut out last week.
Is it a great start-to-finish record? No. And if you’ve been out of the Mariah loop for awhile and pick it up thinking there’s gonna be a barnburner like “Honey,” “Make it Happen” or “Dreamlover,” well — dream on. Any longtime music fan knows sometimes our favorite acts don’t always make the record we wanted them to. The “Caution”-era Mariah, now in her late 40s, is musically more subtle. These tracks don’t come roaring out of the gate. This is a richly atmospheric record you can play anywhere; its slinky, sexy, lite hip-hop grooves (courtesy a wide array of top-shelf producers) are easy on the ear. The handful of rap cameos from Ty Dolla Sign, Slick Rick, Blood Orange and Gunna are woven in deftly. There’s a sonic cohesiveness (although some might call it a mid-tempo rut) to the whole thing that’s refreshing.
It’s also a tight record with just 10 songs clocking in at 39 minutes total. Carey deserves kudos for reining in both musical excess and overall bloat here.
The best cuts all come early. “GTFO” (“get the fuck out”) is mellow and chill and would sound great on a turntable. Despite it being a sly and cleverly worded kiss-off, it’s an ear worm and a great opening cut.
First (non-promo) single “With You” drips with atmosphere and Carey and a lover enjoy “shots of Remy/playin’ confessions and our bodies blending/ooooh I’m in love it’s true/yeah damn I fux witchu.” Of course she’s no Bob Dylan (Carey co-penned all 10 cuts), but we never expected her to be. It’s again mellow, the chord progressions flow like melted butter and the lyrics are loose enough so as to give her plenty of room to improvise as the song reaches a boil.
She does it all with her usual tricks — doubled vocals an octave higher, ad-libby sounding outro lyrics, cascading vocal melismas and even a subtle cameo from her famed “whistle register,” (the upper reaches of her vocal range which early on were her trademark). Carey has struggled in live performance in recent years. Her range has at times appeared shot, her pitch shockingly iffy and even her mid-range lacking the luster it had in the ‘90s. But with all the studio bells and whistles at her disposal, Carey sounds great on “Caution.” The range is there but you never feel like she’s beating you over the head with vocal gymnastics.
The title cut is mellow, slinky and catchy. Several tracks follow in similar lush, always mid-tempo fashion — cute “A No No,” radio-friendly and current-sounding “The Distance,” vapory Streisand-referencing “Giving Me Life” and plinky, sputtering “Stay Long Love You.” She’s variously horny, nostalgic, ready to put a douchey lover in his place and so on. There’s no grand statement here about anything, but that’s OK.
There are only two out-and-out duds — inane “One Mo’ Gen” (just her hoody way of saying she wants to have sex again over neo-Vaudevillian chords) and nicely textured but lyrically weak “8th Grade,” which makes absolutely no sense.
The record only changes gear at all on final cut “Portrait,” a heartbroken piano ballad that ends on an optimistic note and a major chord. It’s the only cut that particularly goes anywhere, reaching a nice little musical/vocal froth that just as quickly simmers back down. You never particularly feel in these choices that Carey is reining things in to save herself taxation. That could be a factor but it feels more like an artistic choice and overall it works quite well.
Sadly Carey is now — by sheer age and sexism alone — several years into the inevitable radio shut-out that plagues all divas after about age 35. She had a decent hit (no. 15) with Miguel with “#Beautiful” in 2013, but her last no. 1 (“Touch My Body”) is a full decade behind her. “With You” has done OK on some of the minor charts but hasn’t cracked the Hot 100, which would have been unthinkable for Carey in the ‘90s or early ‘00s.
How our various veteran lady artists tackle this sad reality creatively is always interesting to witness. “Caution” is no “E=MC2” (Carey’s last great record) but it’s uber current sounding, subtle and captures the singer vamping around like she’s still in her fun-loving and sexual prime without coming off as Norma Desmond-ish. She’s hovering near — if not totally hitting — a late career sweet spot that sounds warm and inviting whether radio decides to do anything with it or not.
Music & Concerts
Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule
Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.
Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).
Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.
With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.
Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”
That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.
While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.
Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.
On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.
Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.
When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.
Music & Concerts
Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’
Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co.
Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.
For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.

Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.
The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”
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