By J. Freedom du Lac
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 8, 2005 1:41 PM

Meet the new Mimi, same as the old . . . Mariah.

Pop diva Mariah Carey, whose once-flourishing career was left for dead after a series of artistic misfires and a very public meltdown, has returned -- officially and rather emphatically -- to full-on flourish mode. Carey's remarkable comeback reached a crescendo today when she grabbed eight Grammy nominations, including one for the biggest award of all: album of the year.

"The Emancipation of Mimi," Carey's best-selling release in years, will compete with Kanye West's ambitious rap opus, "Late Registration," Gwen Stefani's delightful if fluffy dance-pop cycle, "Love. Angel. Music. Baby," U2's soulful "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and, following a longstanding recording academy tradition of including at least one aged artist every year, Paul McCartney's "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard." (It's Sir Paul's best work in a long, long time. But still.)

Carey's smash hit, "We Belong Together," is up for record and song of the year, plus the more specialized R&B songwriting and female R&B vocal performance awards. "It's Like That," the other big song from "The Emancipation of Mimi," got a nod in the female pop vocal category, and a third "Mimi" track -- "Mine Again" -- is up for best traditional R&B vocal performance.

"Mimi" is also up for best contemporary R&B album. Not to be confused with, simply, best R&B album.

(R&B, according to Grammy: Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Fantasia, John Legend and Earth, Wind and Fire. Contemporary R&B: Mariah, Mario, Omarion, Destiny's Child and Washington's own Amerie.)

Carey tied soul singer Legend and rapper West atop the leader board when nominations for the 48th Grammy awards were announced today. (Wonder, 50 Cent, Beyonce and will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas were two strokes off the pace, with six nominations apiece, while Stefani, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys and Virginia Beach's Missy Elliott received five each. No country artist received more than four nominations, with Gretchen Wilson and Brad Paisley leading the way.)

While Carey's resurrection is the headline story, West is doing his best to ensure that he gets the subhead: The megalomaniacal artist has been doing some preemptive whining, telling MTV News that he's going to be very, very, very disappointed if the admittedly great "Late Registration" doesn't win the album of the year Grammy simply because he scratched his "politically incorrect" itch earlier this year.

You remember that whole "George Bush doesn't care about black people" thing, no? Well, West is pretty sure that the 12,000 Grammy voters do, and that they'll penalize him accordingly.

Thus, when the Grammy ceremony is held in Los Angeles Feb. 8, there's major hissy-fit potential. Particularly since there's precedence: When West lost the best new artist award to the lovably tough country chick Gretchen Wilson at the American Music Awards, he huffed and puffed and otherwise comported himself like a big baby.

But instead of gripping and griping, perhaps West should just take a deep breath and pat himself on the back. His eight nominations -- including record of the year for the infectious "Gold Digger," the rap songwriting award for the quasi-statement single "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" and best rap album and best album album for "Late Registration" -- come just one year after he walked away with 10 nominations for his debut, "College Dropout," among other projects. (He wound up winning three statuettes.)

And besides, the other big winner on Grammy-nom day is West's R&B sidekick, Legend, whose "Get Lifted" album was released on West's own label.

Legend, an old-style soul singer trapped in a hip-hop world, is up for, among other awards, song of the year ("Ordinary People") and best new artist, where he's competing against the emo idols Fall Out Boy, crunk princess Ciara, piano-rockers Keane and the country outfit SugarLand. (Notable by their absence: The Arcade Fire, although the indie-rock godheads' "Funeral" is nominated for best alternative album, and the Montreal band's "Cold Wind," featured on HBO's "Six Feet Under," is up for best song written for movies or TV.)

Nominees with D.C. ties include Amerie, who, in addition to her contemporary R&B album nomination for "Touch," is up for best female R&B vocal performance, for her insanely funky "1 Thing"; Deep Dish (dance recording, "Say Hello"); Emmylou Harris (female country vocal performance, "The Connection"); perennial candidates Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer (musical album for children, "Scat Like That: A Musical Word Odyssey"); and Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters (rock album, "In Your Honor," rock song and rock performance by a duo or group, "Best of You," pop collaboration with vocals, "Virginia Moon" featuring "Norah Jones).

Oh, and in perhaps the only time you'll ever see Bob Dylan and R. Kelly mentioned in the same sentence: Filmmaker Martin Scorsese's outstanding Dylan documentary, "No Direction Home," will square off against embattled R&B singer Kelly's strangely compelling, five-part "Trapped in the Closet" soap opera in the best long-form music video race. "End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones," "Brian Wilson Presents 'Smile' " and Bruce Springsteen's "Devils & Dust" are also in the running.

Mariah Carey's ill-fated movie, "Glitter," thankfully is not.