Every Mariah Carey Album, Ranked From Worst to Best (Part 1)

All hail the Queen of Christmas.

For all the flack she’s taken over the years, it’s easy to forget just how much commercial and critical success Mariah Carey has garnered throughout her career.

In a little over three decades as a global pop star, Carey has:

• Sold over 220 million records worldwide

• Spent 95 (!) non-consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100 chart

• Set the record for most No. 1 singles by a solo artist (19) in Billboard history

• Won 5 Grammys, 10 American Music Awards, and 20 Billboard Music Awards

• Starred in the most successful song of the 90s (”One Sweet Day”) and 2000s (”We Belong Together”)

And, if all that wasn’t enough, she’s also the Queen of Christmas. But, despite her acknowledged place among pop (and holiday) royalty, she’s always been more known for hit radio singles than her comprehensive studio output. I’m doing my part to rectify that oversight by ranking every Mariah Carey album from worst (a relative word in this case) to best.

If you haven’t read any of my other discography ranking posts, I invite you to get caught up on what you’ve missed, including deep dives into the works of:

• Bob Marley

• Coldplay

• Guns N’ Roses

• Madonna

• U2

Also, if you’re enjoying this newsletter content and haven’t subscribed yet, I’d love if you’d consider joining this vibrant community of music aficionados we’re building here on Substack. Click the button below. Mariah would approve.

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Here we go:

15. Charmbracelet (2002)

When you think of Mariah Carey, “meek” isn’t a term that comes to mind. Unfortunately, it’s an apt descriptor for Charmbracelet, her 2002 album that, more than anything else, is unassuming to a fault. It’s an example of Mariah at her lowest.

There are ample reasons why she found herself in such a fragile state at this particular point in her career. Following the nasty backlash to Glitter, a pop culture maelstrom I’ll discuss in more detail later on, Mariah had checked herself into a Connecticut hospital for what was described as an “emotional and physical breakdown.” It’s worth pointing out how nasty the backlash against her got, especially following a failed stunt appearance on TRL. Virgin Records decided it was an opportune moment to kick her while she was down, buying out her $100 million deal with the label. She fled to Italy to complete her healing process, writing much of what would become Charmbracelet during that trip.

After all that, it’s a miracle Charmbracelet exists at all, even if it’s “meh” musically.

As far as I can tell, it’s the first album she ever put out without a bankable lead single blazing a trail for its commercial prospects. There’s no pillar bop or ballad here, and, as a result, the LP plays as a bit of a rudderless creative crisis following the Glitter catastrophe. The only single that came out of the Charmbracelet pre-album cycle was “Through the Rain,” which is solid but doesn’t add anything fresh or exciting to her catalog. Her introspective lyrics are undercut somewhat by a stiff vocal performance that, compared to her 90s output, lacks confidence.

Clocking in at a flabby 65 minutes, it’s arguably the most forgettable music Mariah’s ever released. It’s a skip for me unless you’re a die-hard or completist.

14. Merry Christmas II You (2010)

Call me a Scrooge, but I’m not a huge fan of Christmas music. It has nothing to do with any religious point of view or contempt for that specific holiday—I just think a lot of it ranges from annoyingly, incessantly pleasant to straight-up bad. As such, I’ve never really cared about Mariah Carey’s status as the Queen of Christmas. But, having said all that, the optics of Merry Christmas II You, the 2010 sequel of sorts to her first 1994 holiday-themed record, fascinate me.

On the one hand, it’s a nakedly opportunistic move made during a career lull. After “Obsessed” peaked inside the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in June 2009, follow-up sequels failed to generate significant buzz. A remix album was started, stopped, restarted, and then shelved, seemingly in favor of running back a familiar formula to get audiences excited about a new Mariah Carey record. But, on the other hand, you’re setting yourself up for a death-by-comparison situation when you go up against a classic as beloved as Merry Christmas. It’s more of the same, but how could it be seen as anything other than at least slightly diminishing returns?

Generally speaking, there’s nothing offensively inept about Merry Christmas II You. The tracklist features a combination of well-known carols and some new Christmas originals, with the latter group headlined by her biggest seasonal single since “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” “Oh Santa.” Even though it’s not awful, it’s still pretty bland. The production is frequently flat and lacks a lot of the soulful character that made that initial holiday record so special. It’s the sonic equivalent of looking at a Christmas tree without the lights turned on or the best ornaments added.

Oddly enough, the best track is a live cut of “O Holy Night” that was recorded live in South Central Los Angeles. You hear how full of life her voice is on that track, set against the rich texture of the choir, and you wish they’d just taped a live album and called it a day. Instead, we got this.

13. Emotions (1991)

In what will become a theme that runs throughout my Mariah Carey discography ranking, Emotions is the first record that feels the need to walk a tightrope between impressive and expressive vocals.

What I mean by that is the trade-off between the singer’s showiest, most jaw-dropping displays of raw talent and her more revealing moments that may connect with the listener on a deeper level. She can blow you away with sheer vocal might most of the time, but those instances also keep you at arm’s length. She’s showing off; to a degree, that’s what you’re there for. That’s what you’re paying to hear. But it’s challenging to keep that high-wire act going for an entire album’s running time and not have those seams show at some point.

Examples of this phenomenon are all over Emotions’ tracklist. A song like “Till the End of Time,” an empty-calorie, overproduced 90s ballad, is built to showcase Mariah’s virtuosity at the expense of any depth. On the other side of that equation, “Can’t Let Go” is more nuanced and consistently resonant emotionally. The best-sounding moments on this LP are the slick R&B grooves that sit on the fence between impressive and expressive. The title track, “Make It Happen,” and “To Be Around You” are all immaculately produced and mixed, delivering just enough razzle-dazzle to suck you in.

Emotions leans adult contemporary by today’s standards but what it lacks in excitement it makes up for in polish. I can’t fault this album in any major way, but nothing about it pushes it into the realm of greatness for me.

12. Music Box (1993)

Music Box is an important inflection point in Mariah Carey’s career in that it proved her music could be a different kind of effortless. On her previous two albums, her octave-bending melismatic singing technique was the star of the show. Here, she reins in the theatrics in favor of precise, occasionally exquisite pop execution. Unsurprisingly, it’s also her first LP that, in fits and starts, approached greatness.

Some of these tracks work much better than they would’ve earlier in her career. Ballads like “Hero” and “Without You” still soar, but don’t fly so close to the sun as to risk blowing your eardrums to smithereens. There’s also the underrated Babyface collab “Never Forget You,” fitting nicely into that smooth, buttery adult-contemporary sonic template he’s now famous for. Almost in spite of its formulaic nature, I was vibing to it.

Less appealing is “Dreamlover,” arguably the purest pop song on this tracklist. Not a popular opinion in the eyes of some, I’m sure, but I can’t lie and say I love it, either. As catchy and gooey as that chorus is, it’s frictionless to the point of being insubstantial. She and Walter Afanasieff have teamed up for more effective radio bops in the years since. But, crucially, this track was also co-produced by Dave Hall, who’d previously collaborated with Brand Nubian, Heavy D & the Boyz, and Mary J. Blige. In a way, “Dreamlover” was also one of the first Mariah songs to approximate rap.

Sanding some of the more grandiose edges off her sound may have been what the label wanted long-term. Music Box was released the same summer she married Tommy Mottola, a man she’d later describe as “extremely controlling” and someone who made their relationship “oppressive.” Both parties were under tremendous pressure to perform at unsustainably high levels. After reading interviews with Mottola, I realized he sounded like a hedge fund manager trying to protect a highly lucrative asset’s value. In a way, this album sounds like that, too.

11. Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (2009)

This album gets the nod over the more commercially successful Music Box and Emotions for one reason: the songwriting is among the best of Mariah’s career.

I’m not ready to proclaim this one a secret masterpiece, though you’ll find plenty of online pop music fans and Reddit threads who twist themselves into all sorts of knots trying to do so. It’s not on that level, mainly because the production choices aren’t all that compelling or memorable. What I will say is the uproariously petty, purposely ridiculous lyricism is so much fun that it’s closer to a Lil Wayne or Kendrick Lamar verse than any of her pop contemporaries.

Some of my favorites include:

• “Put all your s*** in the elevator/It's goin' down like a denominator” (”It’s a Wrap”)

• “Love ya like Kool-aid, Louis Millionaire shades/Love ya like sugar daddys, love ya like a pimp caddy” (”The Impossible”)

• “Got you all fired up with your Napoleon complex/See right through you like you're bathing in Windex” (”Obsessed”)

That last one is so corny that it ends up being a sick burn aimed at the guy she’s mercilessly brushing off. It’s the kind of line you’d expect to hear in a knowing SNL sketch or one of those celebrity roasts on Comedy Central. Coming from Mariah, it’s odd and somewhat out of place, but I can’t deny that I laughed my ass off. Or that I was charmed by it. As we’ll see in this discography ranking series, petty Mariah is often the best version of her writing-wise.

The only major disappointment is the closing cover of Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.” On paper, it has all the makings of an extra-base hit for her, if not an outright home run. But, puzzlingly, it never gets off the ground. It closes the record with a whimper, which I wish weren’t so, but unevenness aside, there’s a lot to like on Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.

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Which of these albums is your favorite? Which Mariah Carey jam ranks up there for you? Sound off in the comments.