Mariah the Scientist puts every lover girl and lover boy’s diary to song. A heartbreak is more than just a measly breakup and falling in love is more than a few stomach butterflies: The Atlanta singer’s accounts of love feel world-shifting, and in her world, they sometimes are. It’s been a little under a year since her boyfriend, rapper Young Thug, was released from jail following a 2022 arrest on gang-related charges and the longest criminal trial in Georgia history. Through it all, Mariah appeared faithfully by his side, even when others’ faith might have wavered, like when Thug’s jail call with another woman leaked last Christmas. Matters like these test the heart, and it’s this experience and others that helped to fuel Mariah’s fourth album, HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY.
On her prior full-length, 2023’s anticlimactic To Be Eaten Alive, dull production and ambitious vocal arrangements didn’t always support the best Mariah has to offer. HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY marks a turnaround. The album is scaled to allow Mariah to push herself as a vocalist, but not so much that it takes her off-course. Its chilly production envisions a frozen landscape with Mariah’s voice radiating warmth from its center, trying to burn her way through to clarity. On “Sacrifice,” when she sings, “I’m all out of pages to turn/So I’ll read this out loud,” her following vocal run shimmers like eyes watering with tears of frustration. The song’s production evokes 1980s synth-pop, with twinkling keys, a steady heartbeat pulse, and airy backing vocals that seem to lift Mariah up while she’s down. Now, there’s less room for error.
The new album marks the return of collaborator Nineteen85, one-half of R&B duo dvsn and a frequent beatmaker for Drake. His and Mariah’s work together began with three songs on To Be Eaten Alive; here, he’s credited as executive producer, a first in her catalog. Their collaboration “helped me realize what it could be like to think outside of a box and explore more texture,” Mariah told Rolling Stone. Texture is exactly what’s improved: The raw emotion of “No More Entertainers” is elevated with waning synths that support her cries, rather than leaving her hanging. The muffled synth and gritty atmosphere of the Kali Uchis duet “Is It a Crime” underline the song’s vision of love as illicit and combative. For the first time in her career, Mariah doesn’t sound like she’s DIYing from her bedroom; HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY caters to her sensitivity and skillful pen while deftly accommodating a vocal range that can sound too nasal when pushed to its edge.
