You better believe Mariah Carey is still on top of her game in 2025! The R&B superstar spoiled fans with a 10-minute live studio medley of her hits in May 2025, and it had everything we love about Mimi. The session is an intimate affair with just Carey on the mic with only a lone pianist for accompaniment. While the New York star certainly sounds great with a full production behind her, many fans declared that she does her very best work on stripped-back arrangements like this, and The Music Man has to agree!
The five-track medley featured songs from her legendary 2005 comeback album The Emancipation of Mimi. There are two highlights in the video that viewers just had to keep replaying, which were her jaw-dropping high notes in the opening song “Don’t Forget About Us” and the closer “We Belong Together.” Mimi drops the first sky-high run at the two-minute mark and then another just after 10:15. Carey always delivers the goods live, and this live studio sesh delivers yet more proof of that.
Carey premiered the medley on May 21, 2025, and in the month since then it drew 850,000 views. Fans were impressed by what she delivered and added comments such as “No dancers, no smoke, just an Elusive Chanteuse with a mic and a piano” and “This is the way all her concerts should be. She’s a vocalist, we don’t need dancers and all that other stuff. We just want to hear you SING!”
Carey has featured a number of top-notch live performances on her YouTube channel in recent years. One of the best cuts was her HD upload of her performance of “Love Takes Time” live at the Tatou Club back when she was a fresh-faced rookie in 1990. She sure doesn’t sound like a rookie, though, as even just two years into her career, Mimi already presented the voice of a born superstar, not to mention the aura to match. Watching her work on the mic is truly like watching a force of nature.
Carey’s 2005 album The Emancipation of Mimi is a definitive pop comeback album. Virgin Records had dropped Carey after the poor performance of her 2001 film Glitter and the accompanying soundtrack. Her 2002 follow-up album Charmbracelet fared better but still underperformed compared to her chart-topping run of seven smash hit albums in the 1990s. This set the stage for the release of The Emancipation of Mimi, which went seven times Platinum and became her first US number one since the ‘90s. The Music Man readers may recall that the success of the album was driven by four hit singles, most notably the seven times Platinum second single “We Belong Together.”