Mariah Carey, comedian? Jokeshave never been Carey's forte, but on her 12th album, she gets in touch with her funny bone, adding a cheeky marching-band coda to the thumping club jam "Up Out My Face," threatening to out a cheating lover on national television in "Betcha Gon' Know" ("Oprah Winfrey whole segment, for real"); even poking fun at her own vocal signature, those stemware-shattering falsetto trills ("Love me down till I hit the top of my soprano," she coos in "More Than Just Friends"). The levity reflects the company Mariah is keeping: Every track on Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel was overseen by Carey and the ace duo of The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, who have been known to spice their dense, inventive R&B concoctions with yuks.

The result is Carey's most sonically and tonally coherent release, a mix of love ballads ("Inseparable") and sassy breakup anthems ("Standing O") that might have been her best album had it been several songs shorter. Memoirssags in its second half, on songs such as the tepid "Impossible" and "Languishing (The Interlude)." By the time Carey's plodding cover of "I Want to Know What Love Is" rolls around, the joke's on her listeners.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.