You Were Ours (Last Summer with Miguel).
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[6.78]
Ramzi Awn: The single begins with an ambush of lush vocals and pitch-perfect synths, in classic MC style. She segues the opening chorus into an iconic verse segment, tailor-made for fans of the timeless verses on “#Beautiful” and “Always Be My Baby.” No one else could have cooked this up. The songbird’s vocal prowess is in full swing, and the myriad of Mariah’s employed in “You’re Mine (Eternal)” is a studied, layered and heart-fluttering ode to all the Mariah’s past, with a dizzy twist of 2014.
[10]
Anthony Easton: Though this has the usual acrobatics we expect out of Mariah, the best thing about it is how slow and drawn out she sings many of the verses, like a full ellipses after each word. This is made especially true when, near the end of the track, both effects play together.
[8]
Alfred Soto: OK midtempo Mariah, with cute fluttery piano runs and evidence that her high end hasn’t been sanded over. It’s no “#Beautiful,” though, let alone “The Art of Letting Go.”
[7]
Jer Fairall: With “#Beautiful” still in constant enough rotation (in my house, if not in the world), I miss Miguel’s ability to transform a pleasant trifle into a brilliant one, but Mariah, sounding far more at ease these days than at any of the blockbuster periods of her career, continues to fit comfortably into the grooves of the song rather than dominating them.
[6]
Megan Harrington: Honestly, if you have four minutes and nothing else going on, you could still do better than listening to this song. It’s trapped in a feedback loop of boring: from the bubble bath production, to Mariah’s one-line story and not breaking up because she doesn’t want to and no one is making her and back and back again. The climax is her proving she still has all the octaves.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: If this had been a Beyonce song it would have gone on for another five minutes after the long whistle at the end. Heck, if it had been 90s Mariah, she’d have deployed the trick after every chorus. I give thanks for Mariah’s late-career wisdom as much as her lyrics which stumble over each other in confused determination a la “We Belong Together.” It doesn’t have a knockout chorus, but it twinkles just as brightly as “My Love” or “Touch My Body” anyway. Love involves hurt, hurt reminds her of love — she makes it compelling like a good drama in four minutes.
[8]
Will Adams: That this is an unabashed rewrite of “We Belong Together” but with extra bleeps and bloops only endears it to me more. Neat trick to splice the belt and whistle as if it were a single take, but we can barely relish in it, as the song immediately falls off a cliff two seconds later.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: Mariah Carey’s voice is as strong as ever – she’s one of the rare singers who can take a ho-hum ballad and take it up a notch. But! “You’re Mine (Eternal)” is thankfully not a by-the-numbers snoozer, but rather a fidgety and forceful creation that sells the drama she’s singing about even further. She doesn’t really need help in that department, but it doesn’t hurt to have some backup.
[7]
Brad Shoup: I mostly can’t believe the whistle register is still deployabe. Even though this track stays rooted in tundra, the whistle register pokes through.
[6]