Mariah Carey is back to heat up summer with a new bop 20 years after We Belong Together

For years, Mariah Carey has reigned as the Queen of Christmas.With that unsnatchable crown, the 56-year-old diva has seemed perfectly content to chill until defrosting herself right after Halloween to rule the holiday season with “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”But now MC is heating up a different season — summer — with her first proper new single since her last studio album, 2018’s “Caution.” And “Type Dangerous” — released to the delight of Lambs all over on Friday — threatens to be one of the bops of summer.Yes, 20 years after Carey owned the summer of 2000 with “We Belong Together,” she’s back.It’s not so hard to believe — you can never keep a good diva down.“Type Dangerous” marks another comeback for Carey after “We Belong Together” — from her blockbuster album “The Emancipation of Mimi” — put Carey back on top after a period of relative decline.Arriving just one week after the 20th anniversary edition of “The Emancipation of Mimi,” “Type Dangerous” sounds as if it could’ve been on that legendary 2005 LP.Sampling the Eric B.& Rakim classic “Eric B.

Is President,” it pays homage to Carey’s history as one of the first pop artists to really embrace hip-hop and collaborate with rappers, going all the way back to Ol’ Dirty Bastard on the “Fantasy” remix.And with that bumping bass line, it sounds like New York in the summertime.The lyrics might get a little silly for a certified icon in her fabulous 50s — should she really be dealing with a “computer boy toy” who’s “on the web hacking other girls’ files”? — but Carey can still pull off silly as well as sassy.(And hey, she doesn’t celebrate birthdays but anniversaries, so really she’s ageless.)Hearing her coo that “I like ’em dangerous” while “I don’t have time for the rigmarole” doesn’t have to make any kind of sense, but it sure is fun when the beat is this sweet.Perhaps that jolt of joy comes from the fact...