MARIAH CAREY

She's proclaimed emancipation before, but Mariah Carey's never sounded as free as she does on her 10th album. The usual hummable radio hip-hop and bold ballads are here, in pristine form. ("Bye Bye," a memorial for a lost loved one, is particularly effective.) But so are some coy surprises, like the irresistible "I'm That Chick" (which covertly samples "Off the Wall" for an early Michael Jackson disco bounce) and the Swizz Beatz-produced "O.O.C.," which is catchy enough to make that the vernacular's standard abbreviation for "out of control." Carey even digs deep and pulls up "Side Effects," a Scott Storch-produced, dark hip-hop track that follows a passive woman's descent into domestic abuse ("Sleeping with the enemy/ Aware that he was smothering every last part of me"). Capping it off with Bible-quoting, upright-piano gospel ("I Wish You Well"), Carey's made a pop album with equal parts levity and gravity. —Kerri Mason