Mariah Carey is vocally gifted, but being good at something doesn't guarantee continued success. After all, the Irish had a knack for building impressive ships, yet the most famous of these met its end after hitting an iceberg. Carey's outstanding voice cannot liberate this album from its inherent awfulness, so perhaps she should have called it Titanic.

The album is laden with Carey nuances; it depicts her cavorting scantily clad across the inlay pages, her voice reaches decibels only thought to be audible by canines, she thanks God and her other cronies, drops far too many brand names, and generally tries to emancipate herself from her old self by sounding like a Beyonce/Ashanti rip-off.

Normally it's only expected for the captain to remain with his vessel while it's sinking, but in this case, Captain Carey's bringing her collaborators down with her, including The Neptunes, Nelly, Snoop Dogg and Jermaine Dupri.

It's likely that Carey was hanging onto the coat tails of this album, hoping it would relaunch her as a feisty sex kitten with attitude to boot. However, all that this album has shown the strength of is the amazing power of Adobe Photoshop - and its ability to elongate her legs to unreal proportions (while whittling her waist down a few dress sizes).

The one forgivable cog in this slowing machine is the funky motown-esque Stay the Night, but other than that it wouldn't be a loss if you were to hold a lighter to the CD.