Review: Mariah Carey’s “Here For It All” Marks a Full-Circle Moment 30 Years After “Daydream”

In a 1995 review of Daydream, Vibe magazine wrote, “[Mariah Carey's] songs aren’t ones you’d make love to, give birth to, or more important, barbecue to. Hers are songs you’d take a shower to.” 

First, I’d like to ask, what are “Emotions”, “Dreamlover”, and “Fantasy”, if not summery cookout jams? And secondly, Here For It All (and her catalogue throughout the years) are full of anthems and hits you’d fall in love to, breakup to, praise God to, and more importantly, outlast print magazines, while remaining relevant in the digital era.

Photographed by Steven Meisel in 1995, the album cover for Mariah Carey’s fifth studio album Daydream captures the songbird in symbolic repose. Her eyes wide, hair caught mid-breeze, suspended between stillness and motion. Mariah looks dazed, almost like she’s just woken up, caught in that fragile moment between dream and reality. Daydream wasn’t just an album title; it was a state of being. The album plays like a lucid memory, one Mariah’s piecing together in real time: the fantasy of escape (“Fantasy”), the ache of introspection “Looking In”, the thrill of experimentation (“Daydream” (Interlude).In grayscale, all attention fell to her expression: poised, distant, knowing. It's the portrait of a woman beginning to reclaim her own story, just as the music inside evolved her voice.

Three decades later, Here For It All, Carey’s 16th studio album, arrives on the same date that Daydream first released internationally—a full-circle moment rich with symbolism. Again, she’s in black and white, but the tone has shifted. A breeze still caresses her hair, but her eyes are closed this time. Her hand rests gently on her cheek, her smile radiating serenity. She’s lived—and survived—it all. The image suggests liberation; Mariah’s at peace with the chaos of life and the fickleness of the industry.

During Daydream, Carey was fighting for creative control—famously sparring with the “corporate morgue” (her term for label execs who resisted her instincts) to feature Ol’ Dirty Bastard on the “Fantasy” remix. On Here For It All, she’s in complete command.  On “Type Dangerous”, the album’s lead single, Mariah dusts off the crates for a sample of “Eric B. For President”. It’’s a deliberate wink and nod to her hip-hop roots, and illustrates that Mariah’s always been the architect of her sound. And over the course of 11 tracks, Here For It All pays homage to the rhythms and soul that influenced Mariah’s musical legacy, and also iterates on her own innovations within R&B and pop. 

On opener,“Mi,” Mariah sonically picks up where she left us on 2018’s Caution. The opulent production conjures luxury. Synths and layered vocals swirl in spa-day ambiance, iced out in the “Harry Winston diamonds and some LOUIS XIII” she name drops. Mariah’s lengthy resume includes author of a New York Time’s best-selling memoir, and  “Mi” plays as the latest tongue-in-cheek chapter on a journey of self-love.

Collaborations with Anderson .Paak inject organic soul back into her palette, recalling the live instrumentation that made The Emancipation of Mimi a modern classic.“Play This Song”, a duet with .Paak, is a dreamy kiss-off instructing an ex to “play this song, by yourself.” Their musical chemistry is effortless and undeniable like Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack.

Paak brings carefree vibrancy to “I Won’t Allow It.” Carey’s vocals skate around the bombastic disco jam, celebratory as she takes aim at someone with “narcissistic ways.” But the party doesn’t stop there —- “Jesus I Do” ft. The legendary Clark Sisters is a rush of joyful praise that brings the dance floor to Sunday mornings. It’s as if Mariah’s own “Make It Happen” was mashed up with a Pointer Sister’s song, and the outcome is about as divine and revelatory as you’d expect.

Since parting ways with Sony’s Columbia imprint, Mariah, —and mainstream pop—has largely moved away from the grand ballads that once dominated radio (and that makeup several of Mariah’’s historic 18 #1 singles). But on Here For It All, she revisits that space with a new kind of intimacy. She doesn’t need to belt at skyscraper heights like she did on “Hero” to make you feel her. When she sings of a “gruesome fall” or fears she’d “never rise again” on “Nothing Is Impossible,” her voice—seasoned with experience—carries a raw, earned wisdom. Gone are the glossy ‘90s adult-contemporary trappings; what remains is pure emotion, laid bare.

Her cover of The Wings’ “My Love” leans into 70s sensuality, her lower register glowing with warmth. And on the title track, “Here For It All,” she distills everything she’s learned about love and endurance into one breathtaking closer. There’s an astonishing amount of musicality and sentimentality to Mariah declaring she’s all in on love, even if it involves the price tag of a “Buggatti, or whatever they’re called.” What begins as a piano-led ballad swells into a six-minute odyssey, ending with Carey exalting, “you just gotta praise the Most High.” It’s both a musical and spiritual climax, evoking her underappreciated forays into house music—fluid, freeing, transcendent.

By album’s end, Carey strips everything back to truth. No bells. No whistle (notes). Just heart and that enduring, once-in-a-lifetime voice. She’s still here. Still here for it all.

PRESSED PICKS

1. Mi

2. Play This Song ft. Anderson .Paak

3. In Your Feelings

4. I Won't Allow It

5. Jesus I Do ft. The Clark Sisters

6. Here For It All