‘This Is Me… Then’ Preferred Over ‘Charmbracelet’

Franklin Soults of the Boston Phoenix reviewed the latest releases from Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez, calling ‘Charmbracelet’ whitewashed R&B that has not survived the ’90s and ‘The Is Me… Then’ a minor, if pleasant interlude before the next makeover. He added, “Whether Carey and Lopez know it or not, white suburbia also plays a passive role in the successes and failures of the singers’ diametrically opposed new albums. In fact, the tremendous difference between this pair’s aesthetic approaches (and their abilities to realize those approaches) reflects a major difference between American pop audiences in the early ’90s and the early ’00s.” Read more.