A little late with the cheese this week, but as long as we get there... I promised to stay away from the eighties this time around (even though it's
such a cheesy decade!) and try to go for something different, and I'm nothing if not a girl of my word. So without further ado, I bid you welcome to the cheese of the nineteen nineties!
Now personally, I've always hated this artiste. I think she overdoes singing in a way which has become copied and almost generic now for new singers, where every word has to be stretched out and stupid phrases like “Whoa-oh-oh-oh-ahhh” get stuck on the end of every sentence, and often extend the end of the song by several seconds. Talk about dragging it out! Yeah, I can only be talking about one person, can't I?
Without you (Mariah Carey) 1994
This is one I will never forgive her for! Although it was not actually his song, “Without you” became a standard for, and identified with, the late Harry Nilsson. His quiet, gentle vocal over simple piano was well known to all of us who bought those compilation love songs albums, and this was always one of my favourite ballads. Carey decided to gee it up, making it more a showcase for her voice than a true representation of the song. She also chose to have it released just after Nilsson's death, a move I consider both cynical and immoral: talk about cashing in on the passing of an artiste!
I also hate her version, much more so the fact that these days it is growing to be seen as the definitive version, to the point where kids nowadays will tell you it's her song, and will stare blankly if you mention the name of Harry Nilsson. She destroyed this song for me, and with her little gospel chorus she injected it with a cheese element the original could never be accused of. She made a mockery of one of the most beautiful love songs ever, and what is worse, achieved her first (though sadly not her only) number one with it. The only one to ruin a song more comprehensively by taking a gentle, simple song and trying to make a cinematic production out of it, taking all the emotion and heart from it and replacing it with pure bombast and ego was Whitney Houston, but that's a tale for another day.