Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Mariah Carey’s “It’s Like That” thunders into the event space and summons dozens of listeners, most sitting in rows of chairs lined up like pews and others standing, to move in communion with its beats: shoulders bounce, heads nod, hands rise, feet tap, smiles widen and eyes close in euphoria as the music consumes them.
At the front of the space, Studio Contro, in Brooklyn, are a record player and two large, hi-fi speakers that play Carey’s 2005 studio album “The Emancipation of Mimi,” a triumphant declaration of freedom.
Welcome to Cue the Record, a Brooklyn-based group that hosts listening sessions at least twice a month in Prospect Heights for an influential vinyl record on an audiophile’s sound system at least twice a month. What started in 2024 as a group of 15 people at a wine bar has grown into ticketed gatherings for around 80 people, with the cost ranging from $25 to $35. Like a book club, Cue the Record discusses an album after attendees listen to it in full.
For artists who painstakingly arrange an album, it’s ideal that fans listen so intently, something rare in the digital era. Even when that artist is a multiplatinum star.
“I love that spaces like this exist, where people come together just to truly listen and celebrate the music,” Mariah Carey wrote in an email, commenting on the gathering. “That’s a beautiful thing.”
Cue the Record wants its members to slow down and explore an album’s story arc together, said Mustafa Ali-Smith, who started the group with a friend. Past sessions included Beyoncé’s 2006 album “B’Day” and Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album “I Want You.”
“You have so many people wanting to transition to this analog space, to make you more present,” Ali-Smith, 28, said. And Cue the Record offers connection and community in a frenetic city.
On that recent Sunday evening in March, guests are gathered on two floors, chatting and sipping wine in anticipation of hearing Carey’s 10th studio album, which sold more than 10 million copies globally and earned Carey three Grammy Awards.
“Whatever way the music is going to call you to move, we ask for you to do that,” Ali-Smith, 28, announces to the room.
Ali-Smith and Pedro Duarte-Kargbo, a guest host for the evening, first play some of Carey’s early work, including Brenda K. Starr’s 1987 hit “I Still Believe,” for which Carey sang backing vocals, as well as Carey’s 1990 debut single “Vision of Love.” Guests heave a communal sigh at the mention of the artist’s marriage to the music mogul Tommy Mottola, a time that Carey has long described as a stifling period. The hosts discuss the twists of her career in the 15 years leading up to the album, including her leaning into hip-hop and R&B, which she blended with pop and gospel sounds. They also talk about the album’s featured artists and producers, including the Roots pianist and producer James Poyser.
“Pay attention for that sound, because I think you can hear which is the one he produced,” Duarte-Kargbo, 29, says of Poyser’s contribution to “Mine Again.”
Ali-Smith cues the record, and it crackles to life. The studio transforms into a Sunday service, as guests sing every word to the powerhouse ballad “We Belong Together.” They close their eyes and tap hands to hearts with “Mine Again,” some of them lost in the pain as Carey sings of longing for a second chance. They “ooh” along with “Stay The Night,” and throw their arms up as Carey hits the closing notes of “Circles.”
In an intermission, Ali-Smith points out that the song “Shake It Off” was a testament to how Carey blocked out negativity and kept producing great work.
Duarte-Kargbo plays a track by the jazz musician Ramsey Lewis that was sampled in “Stay The Night.” (Carey’s track was produced by Kanye West, months after the release of his debut studio album, “The College Dropout.”)
In “Get Your Number,” the rapper and producer Jermaine Dupri, Carey’s longtime collaborator, lends his vocals to one of her songs for the first time, Duarte-Kargbo explains, adding texture.
The original album ends with “Fly Like a Bird,” which Ali-Smith describes as the album’s “the most intimate and vulnerable” track, one that leans into the influences of Carey’s gospel inspirations, including the Clark Sisters and Shirley Caesar. (The hosts play a bonus track included in a reissue of the record: “Don’t Forget About Us.”)
In the final group discussion, participants describe the range of emotions the album evokes: empowered, healed, free.
“It takes me back to being five years old in my mama’s Honda Civic in Durham, North Carolina, with the windows down, and I am just basking in the music,” Ashton Jackson, 26, says.
Another guest wearing a green baseball hat says, “When everyone doubted her, this is the art piece that came out.”
The group debates a long-used label for the album: “I don’t think it’s a comeback album,” Justin Sisson, 38, the owner of Studio Contro, says. “I think it’s a ‘come into’ album. That’s who she was moving forward.”
Mallory Banks says the album was a culmination for Carey. “Excellence, which is what this album is, can feel like such a burden, especially for Black women,” Banks, 31, said. “People just expect you to operate at such a high level, and they think your troughs, which are very normal and human, are the end, when actually it’s just the beginning.”
In an email, Carey wrote that there was “nothing more humbling than knowing that music you poured your heart into still resonates with people today.”
She added: “One day I’m going to have to crash one of these listening parties myself!”
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