Tuesday, April 15, 2008

For the Record

Mr. Porok handing out candy on Friday!
What's scary is that the stuff on the board looks insane.

I was going to say that I'm getting tired of people writing Mariah Carey's new album as "E=MC2" because at least according to the album cover, the "2" should be a superscript. (It turns out I don't know how to write superscripts in Blogger, but I'm also not a professional journalist covering her album for an official publication.) Obviously, there is a difference between multiplying and squaring something. I had a decent foundation in mathematics, even if I ended up being the only Asian in Mr. Porok's class junior year. Anyway, it turns out that Mariah herself says to MTV that "It's sort of like, the emancipation of Mariah Carey, times two." That was disappointing.

But me and Mariah, we go back like babies and pacifiers. I'm a pretty loyal fan (I was one of the few pathetic souls who went to her Charmbracelet Tour but missed out on her less embarrassing, more successful Rainbow Tour), so I refused to download her album through torrents before the release date. Indeed, I contributed to her beating Elvis as the solo artist with the most #1 singles by purchasing "Touch My Body" on iTunes and downloading it as a ringtone. Today, I watched her "mentor" American Idol contestants on TV, and then I made my mom take me to Target to get her album. I opted to get the "Deluxe Limited Edition" of her CD, which cost a few more dollars. I'm not sure what's so deluxe about it--normally in diners, you get soup or salad and some fries in addition to your sandwich. In this case, you get "an exclusive iPod skin and fold-out poster." They don't mention this on the sticker, mostly because it's pretty obvious, but you also get the now-ubiquitous flimsy cardboard CD case as well.

What am I supposed to do with this creased-ass poster of the cover?

That serves the real purpose of being the lyrics and liner notes sheet?

If I had known the contents of this edition beforehand, I probably would've gotten the original version. The most coveted version of Mariah albums are always the Japanese ones anyway, with all the special bonus tracks. But the experience of breaking the plastic, of digging into the CD case seeking treasures, and then feeling simultaneously duped by the "poster"/lyrics sheet and giddy for the silly iPod skin is priceless.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I bought both the standard and limited versions of the album and I too was unimpressed with the limited edition. It's not the same quality as the Emancipation of Mimi limited, which was printed on a high quality cardboard and had a plastic jewel case backing, which I need to replace because I've looked at it to the point where it's wearing out and peeling in places. It's still sold new on Amazon for $14.99, BTW.

Joe said...

any jd verses?

i bought the rerelease of eom because of the track with jd where hes got stacks like the international house of panacakes

i dont think ive seen many (any) limited edition versions of albums come out with anything other than a dvd or foldout poster or both, so id say the ipod skin is a big win

exceptions i can think of/purchased are a hilary duff album with pictures with her facsimile signature on them and a rihanna album with pictures that dont even have a facsimile signature on them

japanese release talk makes me remember that i had wanted to pick up the timbaland album from there because i saw wise was on a remix of that song that andy likes a lot