On Here For It All, Mariah Carey exposes her soft side

In the seven years since her last studio album Caution, Mariah Carey has publicly been on a hot streak. Every holiday season, the self-proclaimed Queen of Christmas comes out to public aplomb. But in 2020, Carey revealed to the world that not everything was champagne and confetti; that year, she published a memoir that peeled back the veneer of her career: feeling overworked, sleep deprived, and betrayed by her own family. Her new album Here For It All, her first release of new music since the memoir, isn’t an extension of this narrative per se, but it does feel similarly unguarded: an R&B fusion record with a strong gospel backbone that sees a rare, vulnerable Mimi taking stock of how far she’s come.

The cocksure fire of its lead single “Type Dangerous” was, in hindsight, a bit red herring as Here For It All seems like it wants to be known more for its power ballads. Of its 11 songs, five embody a lone-spotlight moment like “In Your Feelings,” a swaying belter that could work as a show-stopping karaoke song. The record itself closes on a three-song run of misty-eyed dramatics: “My Love,” the praise-hand-inducing “Jesus I Do,” and the record’s grateful, introspective title track. “I thank the lord I’ve lived to see the physical embodiment of love.” (Cue whistle note.)

The standout of these slow songs is “Nothing Is Impossible” where Carey movingly sings to her own resilience: “I knew deep down inside that I could fly, ‘cause I dream a greater dream, I fight a greater fight, survived a gruesome fall.” One assumes she might be addressing her mother and sister, both of whom died on the same day in 2024. The usually hard-exterior diva exposes her soft side.

This is Mimi, however, and she needs to have her diva moments. Those come in the form of the bubbly Confetti & Champagne” and the diamond-flexing “Mi.” She produced a couple songs with .Anderson Paak who adds his signature sleek suave to Carey’s reliable sound, time-tested and well-worn in at this point. You won’t learn anything groundbreaking about Carey from Here For It All but this deep into her career it’s her consistency that’s impressive.