Twitter Has Mixed Feelings About Mariah Carey’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Performance

There were many reasons to tune in to Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, but this year there was the added bonus of Mariah Carey. Viewers were wondering if the singer would be able to redeem herself from her less-than-stellar performance at the 2016 holiday special. But did she? Let's just say that Twitter had mixed feelings about Mariah Carey's 2017 Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve performance.

Carey's performance from last year went horribly wrong when technical difficulties left the singer high and dry during the live special. Her musical medley started off okay, but just as "Emotions" began playing, her pre-recorded track was audible and Carey didn't exactly sing along, which led viewers to criticize her poor attempts at lip-syncing. "It’s not going to stop me from doing a live event in the future. But it will make me less trusting of using anyone outside of my own team," Carey previously told Entertainment Weekly following the infamous TV snafu.

Fortunately, Carey proved to be a woman of her word. For the 2017 special, the singer decided to look shade straight in its eye and "shake it off." “We can all agree that last year didn’t go exactly as planned and we are thrilled to move forward together to provide America with an incredible night of music and celebration,” Carey said in a statement when her comeback performance was first announced.

Bundled up in a white fur coat, the seasoned songstress belted out two of her '90s hits — “Vision of Love” and “Hero" sans the background track this go-round. Not-so-subtly reminding the crowd that she was indeed singing live, in between the songs Carey asked if it would be okay for her to go take a sip of tea. “I’m just going to take a sip of tea if they’ll let me. They told me there would be tea,” Carey said, with a grin poking fun at herself. Unfortunately she couldn’t find the tea and said, “Ugh, it’s a disaster. Okay, well, we’ll just have to rough it. I’m going to be just like everybody else with no hot tea.”

The singer smiled and continued, ending her performance on a high note. Many fans were satisfied with Carey's vocals this time around and took to Twitter to praise the performance.

But everyone wasn't too impressed and disgruntled "fans" didn't hesitate to share their disappointment with her aging vocal cords and so-so performance. Some felt like Carey played it safe by incorporating no real choreography, backup dancers, etc., and instead opting to stand still, singing into the mic. Although in her defense, it was less than 10 degrees in New York City, so dancing around in a sparkly bodysuit might not have been feasible.

Although, regardless of how viewers felt about her performance, all of Twitter could agree that it took plenty of guts for Carey to return to the stage after what happened last year. Her willingness to try again after she "failed," even even inspired some users' 2018 goals.

Carey couldn't be more proud of her comeback performance either. After host of the holiday special Ryan Seacrest congratulated Carey on making it through without a hitch, he asked her how she felt about it. "I'm feeling a lot better than last year," Carey said, "when I had to get my own police escort."

Although fans may have loved to see Carey's diva-licious self carried out on a luxurious chaise lounge, at least one eight-count of choreography, and maybe even a lengthier performance, no one can deny that her performance this year was a vast improvement from the last. Just don't call it a comeback!

Editor's note: After publication, we discovered this article did not meet our editorial standards: There were portions that did not correctly attribute another source. It has been updated to meet our standards.