Entertainment Weekly
by Danyel Smith, November 12, 1999
Rating: B+

Mariah Carey has never been famous for conveying calculated attitude (a la Janet Jackson and Madonna) or writing songs that reflect intense personal drama (Lauryn Hill or Mary J Blige). Rather, she has connected with fans via an astonishing vocal prowess - despite near-prosaic material. She's cleaned up by belting out sweeping ballads ("Vision of Love," "Hero") that conceal even as they appeal. In this sense, Rainbow, her seventh album, is a revelation.

With 1997's vibrant Butterfly, Carey went from mannered and awkward to relaxed and bold. Her voice was in top form, and she risked losing older pop fans by going for a slick, timely hip-hop and R&B sound. With help from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (famous for producing 10 years' worth of Janet Jackson hits) and underground hip-hop maestros like DJ Clue, Rainbow keeps the promise made on Butterfly, setting a new musical standard for unifying hip-hop and R&B. Lyrically - and more importantly for the 29 year-old songwriter - Rainbow brims with a richness and vulnerability only hinted at before.

A song cycle about love and its permutations, the album plays coy with its autobiographical clues while withholding little emotionally. The whispery, heartbreaking "Petals" alludes to Carey's shattered family life and marriage to Sony Music chief Tommy Mottola. Listeners with an eye on the tabloids could read her close, ringing interpretation of Phil Collins' 1984 hit "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)," as a postmortem on her bittersweet affair with Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter and a poignant evocation of the couple's mixed-race heritage ("You're the only one who really knew me at all"). "Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)," the emotional center of the album, casts Carey as a survivor of these and other disappointments. "There's a light in me/That shines brightly," she sings. The song (cowritten with Diane Warren and coproduced with Jam and Lewis) resonates with new life experience - a kind of truth and uplift.

Rainbow's confidence is not merely in its subject matter. Musically, Carey's new collaborations display a gutsy composure. The sing cannily pairs with Snoop Dogg on the sexy "Crybaby," the rappers words tumbling like dice across her velvety vocals. On the delectable confection "Heartbreaker" (which has taken its knocks for recycling the hits "Fantasy" and "Dreamlover"), she smartly uses Jay-Z's droll rap about a bratty girlfriend as tart counterpoint to her creamy tones.

Like all of Carey's albums, this one is ocassionally overblown and prone to miscalculation (Missy Elliott's and Da Brat's bad sexual politics sink the tired "Heartbreaker (Remix)"). But what began on Butterfly as a departure ends up on Rainbow a progress - perhaps the first compelling proof of Carey's true colors as an artist.


Rolling Stone
By Arion Berger, November 25, 1999
Rating: 3 stars/5 stars

For a singer with such an impressive vocal range, Mariah Carey used to display a narrow understanding of her musical milieu -- no amount of piercing coloratura could breathe life into singles that were nothing more than hit-radio vehicles. But with the hip-hop-lite makeover she initiated on the Ol' Dirty Bastard remix of "Fantasy" and continued on 1997's Butterfly, Carey traded a diva's timelessness for youthful relevance. She expands on that lesson with Rainbow. Her emotional stiffness is still evident, but the gamut of modern urban sounds and moods brought to these fourteen tracks by various guest vocalists and producers (including Jam and Lewis, Jermaine Dupri, Master P and Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs) makes Rainbow a sterling chronicle of the state of accessible hip-hop balladeering at the close of 1999.

On the first single, "Heartbreaker," which (like 1995's "Fantasy") owes its musical grounding to Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love," the singer is at her most insinuating: nasal, silken, declarative, riding the percolating beat. Her wronged- but-strong persona remains so consistent that on the midalbum reprise, guest stars Missy Elliott and Da Brat get all angry that good-girl Carey won't. She has good taste in fictional boyfriends -- Jay-Z runs down a funny litany of her bad behavior on "Heartbreaker," and Snoop Dogg sounds fittingly careless on "Crybaby." On "How Much," Usher counterpoints and underscores the complicated rhythm, a menacing Timbaland-style stuttered beat. "X-Girlfriend" has the same stop-start bottom, frothed with synthesized retro sass. Rainbow's ballads are predictably banal; some of the originals, with their references to pride and dreams, are co-written by banal-ballad cash cow Diane Warren, while the one cover is the drippy Eighties power-pop hit "Against All Odds." But Jam and Lewis give gospel soar to "Thank God I Found You," while 98 Degrees help sweeten its vocal mix. Rainbow is at its best -- and Carey at her most comfortable -- when urbane hip-hop stylings and faux R&B coexist in smooth middle-of-the-road harmony.


All Music Guide
By Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Rating: 3 stars/5 stars

Mariah Carey claims Rainbow, her first album since divorcing Tommy Mottola, "chronicles my emotional roller coaster ride of the past year," but less subjective listeners could be forgiven for viewing it as simply another Mariah Carey album. After all, all the elements are in place - the crossover dance hits, the ballads, the cameos, the hip producers, the weird cover choice from the early '80s. But dig a little deeper, and her words ring true. Rainbow is the first Carey album where she's written personal lyrics, and allusions to her separation from Mottola are evident throughout the album, even if it doesn't really amount to the "story" she mentions in the liner notes. As appropriate for any introspective album, it's a bit ballad heavy, which makes Rainbow seem a little samey. Yet that's not the only reason the record has a weird sense of déjà vu, since this follows the same formula as its two predecessors, distinguished primarily by her newfound fondness for flashing flesh. That repetition isn't necessarily a problem, since she does formula very well, managing to appeal to both housewives as well as B-boys. Rainbow proves that she can still pull off that difficult balancing act, but it's hard not to be a little disappointed that she'd didn't shake the music up a little bit more — after all, it would have been a more effective album if the heartbreak, sorrow, and joy that bubbles underneath the music were brought to the surface.