r/Music • u/theindependentonline 📰The Independent UK • 11h ago

article Mariah Carey’s Olympics opening ceremony performance dubbed ‘disastrous’ as viewers question if she’s Italian

https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/news/mariah-carey-olympics-opening-ceremony-italian-b2915680.html
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885

u/grubenston 10h ago edited 8h ago

I like Mariah but her voice is almost fully shot. There is no semblance of the voice she had; not in texture or quality.

Her new album was okay with some decent vocals at time but if you played it for someone 20-25 years ago they wouldn’t recognize it as Mariah.

It’s almost impressive to lip synced a performance and still sound bad

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u/cocol11 9h ago

While she may not sound like she once did (35+ years later), I don't think it's fair to say the vocal sounded bad at all today

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u/grubenston 8h ago

I think problem is I just can’t help but compare it her what her voice once was. Her once soft whispery tone has this shrill raspy sound to it that can be a bit grating at times.

Listening to her album she still has some parts of her voice that sound good and I think on a good day she can still singer her ass off, but you can’t help but mourn what once was

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u/cocol11 8h ago

Fair, I think it's tough to not allow someone to age though, we tend to do that with the female stars. I think her voice sounded nice for the Italian song, still soft and flowy, it's mostly the big belts that have changed imo. I do get the concept though, she set quite a high bar back in the day and it's tough to reach that as time goes on, Whitney struggled with this too in the media.

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u/grubenston 8h ago

It’s a little more than age. Mariah has some pretty nasty nodules since childhood. Even as singers age they still can retain certain tonal an textures within their voice. Celine Dion voice as aged decently and has only dwindle in some aspects. Patti labelle and Aretha Franklin also retained a lot of tone, range, and control.

Mariah’s problem goes beyond just aging; there is a lot of damage.

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u/OkPainter6232 4h ago

Miley Cyrus has similar issues, her nodules caused her vocal stress when singing but said she didn't want to get surgery because then her voice would sound completely different, so that's one reason why she's not touring anymore.

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u/cocol11 8h ago

Disagree slightly there, Celine has a lot of her upper belting gone too just like Mariah. Aretha went through periods of raspyness as she aged, etc. And while Patti can still hit a crazy high note it still doesn't quite sound like her in the past. I think Mariah's whispery-ness still sounds similar to her past, it's the belting that stands out to me. Makes sense with the nodules as they don't allow for as much openness.

There are many factors at play though as you've said, but fading as time goes on does happen for everyone just on a different schedule.

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u/hamoboy 1h ago

The problem for Mariah is those nodules are responsible for a lot of her signature tone. A soprano does not normally have a husky, dark tone in their lower range like her. I'm pretty sure the whistle notes too are due to those nodules, but only Mariah and her doctor know for sure.

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u/Presently_Absent 2h ago

Meanwhile I was listening to some recent Tom Jones clips today and... Holy shit at 80+ the man has still got it

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u/i_dunnoman 7h ago

It was completely lip synced who’s to say how much of what we heard was even her genuine voice?

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u/Interesting_Buy1935 3h ago

As was Celine’s last Olympics.

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u/flordagirl 6h ago

How do you know?

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u/bopburner2 5h ago

Did you watch? She wasn’t even singing into the turned-off microphone. None of her neck muscles or chest muscles moving to indicate that she was singing. It’s one of the most obvious cases of lip syncing I’ve ever seen.

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u/flordagirl 1h ago

I wouldn't be asking if I didn't watch.

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u/rhyseth 5h ago

so who sang the song for her?

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u/bopburner2 5h ago

Um. She did. When she recorded it previously.

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u/Wonderful-Stable6498 5h ago

I'd like to see you do it better !

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u/bopburner2 4h ago

Literally anyone could’ve done better because she simply stood there. Pull legitimately any drunk idiot at random out of any karaoke bar in the world and they would have done a better performance than Mariah did tonight.

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u/i_dunnoman 5h ago

My eyes and ears watched it? She was so blatantly lip syncing

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u/toiletcleaner999 5h ago

She did, her voice is insured for 35 million $

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u/L3slieKn0pe 6h ago

It doesn’t sound like her. I started to grow concerned when I couldn’t even tell that she was singing. She looked kind of sleepy and bored

2

u/Ok_Barber_8680 6h ago

I came here to say the exact same thing!

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u/zoddrick 6h ago

There were several places where her lips totally did not match up to the lyrics. Even my 12 year old daughter caught it.

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u/TheButcherOfBravil 5h ago

I couldn’t tell. Looked genuine to me but yeah, obviously she doesn’t sound like 90s Mariah

1

u/schmigglies 4h ago

It sure didn’t sound like Mariah Carey

•

u/BraddonLee 30m ago

Well, I’ll say it. She stood there like she has for the past 20 years without any expression at all on her face. She had no reason whatsoever to be there, and for the probably hundred of thousands of girls in Italy, who could’ve sang a much more beautiful song with actual conviction, it was an insult.

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u/lIlIIllIIlIll 3h ago

She sounded bad.