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Boston Globe

The album reminds you that those budding superstars can’t beat Carey at her own game.

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The Guardian

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel is a sprawling, 17-track epic with few obvious singles--but it is loaded with creativity.

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Entertainment Weekly

It's puzzling to hear one of music's most powerful voices continually corralled into a feathery R&B midrange; imperfections are nowhere to be found on Memoirs, but neither are many true revelations.

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Billboard.com

Overall, Carey's throwback vibe on Memoirs is refreshing and much welcomed.

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All Music Guide

The album was composed by R&B's best songwriters of the late 2000s, Terius Nash (The-Dream) and Christopher Stewart (Tricky); they give each song the intelligent mid-tempo bump-and-grind they've made into a specialty.

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Rolling Stone

The result is Carey's most sonically and tonally coherent release, a mix of love ballads ('Inseparable') and sassy breakup anthems ('Standing O') that might have been her best album had it been several songs shorter.

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Dot Music

A return to core principles, which has produced a handful of pretty love songs and a solid overall, Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel certainly isn't the disaster we were promised, but then nor is it a triumph.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

Memoirs is Carey’s least pyrotechnic album, its flow is as important as its tunes, and while Carey is still given to acrobatic vocal displays, her lattice of subtler vocal overdubs softens and strengthens those flights.

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Los Angeles Times

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel will stand out in Carey's catalog as an experiment that illuminates her place in the pantheon without either boosting it or damaging it.

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Slant Magazine

Mariah is in fine voice throughout the album, and there are plenty of inspired moments to be found....Which makes it all the more disappointing that the album's final stretch devolves into a mess of old-school Mariah rehashes that should have been left in the past.

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The New York Times

That nuance is mostly gone on Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, Ms. Carey’s 12th studio album, which manages simplicity and clutter all at once.

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New Musical Express

The album itself reveals she’s also got a penchant for exhuming the sickly-sweet memory of Minnie Riperton’s ‘Loving You’ and setting it to 17 different slow jamz drenched in studio gloss.

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musicOMH.com

Though it's commendable to stick with one set of producers to give a sense of cohesion, Memoirs could have done with some variation.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 92 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jayla O gave it a9:
Mariah's voice shines in this album very brightly. Slowly but surely, she's regaining the powerful voice she had in the 90s.

ravdfab M gave it a1:
1 for the effort. with her deteriorating vocals, i believe remixes is not the way to save the album. i tried listening to it about 5 times thinking i might like it after a couple of spins... okay, im done... and i'm bored.

Omar F. gave it a9:
Great music, but not too comercial for the young crowd. Nice sogs, and really good lyrics.

MOHD N gave it a10:
Mariah's most standout album since butterfly..first time i listen to this album.i thought it is boring excpt for angels cry and obsessed.but after 2 or 3 times listen to this album.i honestly think that this album is really good. this is one of mariah album that i can listen from start to finish without skipping tracks. the songs are very cohesive. song like candy bling and betcha gone know remind me of the song called Breakdown from the butterfly album. even though this song contains less powerful vocals.but the vocal arrangement in this album is great and pleasant. carey really put her emotions through this album. the only powerful ballad that really match carey's 90's vocal is I Want To Know What Love is....mariah know has back to her early R&B.

Jimmy J. gave it a10:
Album of the year in my opinion, it was amazing from start to finish. languishing was a lazy re-write of petals, but i dug everything else.

Scooter C. gave it a6:
This album is ALL over the place! The lyrics are fascinating, yet a bit forced. Mariah's voice is a whisper or high whistle notes. Arrangements are intensely over produced or very simple, like my favorite LANGUISHING. H.A.T.E.U. is good, so is OBSESSED, but enough with the remixes BORING!

Maria K gave it a10:
Mariah made this album for the fans who stood y her through thick and thin, and not for the critics. Fans are going to love this!

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Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel

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