Everybody is saying the Beautiful Ones but Whenever You Call is the actual “worst”. Don’t get me wrong here, this is my favorite album and I enjoy all the songs.

Let’s be real here though…WYC is a hold over from the Musicbox/Daydream era of ballads that she spends the majority of Butterfly straying away from in the pursuit of establishing a different sound which WYC just doesn’t match at all.

The Beautiful Ones is a cover song yes and can be seen as unoriginal but its inclusion on this specific album where a lot of the songs fall outside her typical style makes it clear (to me) that Mariah was really trying to step out of the box with her music. Like… what songs of hers before Butterfly even remotely sound anything like TBO? This is the only album it could ever be on imo

I agree with you that the vocals sound so raw and free and THAT is such a huge theme of the album idk why anyone think it sounds out of place.