We probably should’ve realized that something was up when Mariah Carey, self-proclaimed queen of the holiday season, seemingly gave the eff up halfway through a truly disastrous performance at Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve last year. She went from lip syncing to complaining that she couldn’t hear the music to halfheartedly trying to fix the whole thing by letting the audience sing and faintly smiling for the remainder of the performance, waiting for the end and the bitter social media backlash. In retrospect, the entire thing is a kind of sad but incredibly accurate metaphor for the truly shocking excuse of a year that 2017 has been and continues to be.
The moment everyone will be talking about. Mariah Carey's performance on NYE. pic.twitter.com/Au0I8z68Bl
But if you’re looking for inspiration for the new year, then you can also look to Mariah for hope as she has decided to return to the scene of last year’s embarrassment and seek redemption by performing live once again at Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve in Times Square. As TMZ reports, she will perform just before midnight on the live broadcast on Sunday night. But how exactly will her and her team make sure that the last thing viewers will know of 2017 is a beautiful redemption story instead of another vicious meme campaign?
Mariah Carey was like that one person in a group project who didn't do any of the work and now has to present the whole project
I just watched Mariah Carey's NYE performance and just.... pic.twitter.com/v8tAXWvZM2
With 15 minutes remaining, 2016 claimed its final victim: Mariah Carey's career
Mariah’s 2016 New Year’s Eve performance left a considerable-sized stain on her hard-earned festive reputation, and it stirred up quite a bit of drama. It was all at once the fault of the organizers, the fault of Mariah herself, and even the fault of the government (!?). But this year, Mariah is set to return to the same stage with a different attitude. Last year, the organizers’ story was slightly different than Mariah's (though not at all off-brand for the diva). Dick Clark’s people claimed Mariah never showed up for a full, proper sound check, even going as far as to use a stand-in for a part of it. Ryan Seacrest even got footage of the infamous stand-in.
Only Mariah Carey could sign on for a huge, live, televised performance and assume that she could wing it. But TMZ reports that this year, Mariah is agreeing to be fully present for the entirety of sound check and, we assume, to truly take it seriously. TMZ also notes that both sides wanted the repeat performance, and it’s not hard to understand why. Mariah will thrive off the attention and Dick Clark’s people will, too, in the form of ratings. Make sure you're watching to see if Mariah redeems herself or falls flat on her face again.
