On the same day this week, expectation-exceeding CDs arrived from two legendary ladies of song: Mariah Carey and Barbra Streisand.

Both singers refuse to act their age. And both benefit immeasurably from inspired assistance.

Carey is getting a little long in the stiletto for her eyelash-batting coquette act. But she has rarely sounded as sexy or confident as she does on Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (Island ***), released Tuesday.

She took on the white-hot production team of Tricky Stewart and Terius "The-Dream" Nash for this project. Good move.

Their hallmark touch - hooky hits that are meaty, bouncy, and tastefully adorned - is all over this album. On hand-tooled tracks like "Ribbon" and the first single, "Obsessed," they provide Carey with cushy, can't-miss vehicles.

Their genius is in the details, like the misty, velveteen patina they wrap around the ballad "H.A.T.E.U." Or the cuckoo-clock flourish in "Standing O."

Supported by that sturdy sonic framework, Carey is able to take her gale-force vocal style down a peg or two. As with Whitney Houston on her comeback CD, we even get a rare and intriguing taste of the singer's lower register.

Incredibly, Carey manages to resist the temptation to blow it out on an echo-drenched cover of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," a song that practically begs for her trademark air-raid-siren treatment.

The surprise isn't that Tricky and The-Dream got Carey to throttle down. It's that restraint becomes her so well.

The only problem is that Memoirs isn't smartly sequenced, causing it to sag through the middle. Of course, that's not a big issue for the singles-oriented Carey.

Streisand, on the other hand, usually focuses on crafting discrete, coherent collections. The O.D. (Original Diva) succeeds admirably on that score with Love Is the Answer (Columbia ***), her first studio album in four years.

She has help from Canadian chanteuse and pianist Diana Krall (Mrs. Elvis Costello), who serves as producer on this bouquet of standards. The grace notes are added by arranger Johnny Mandel.

Streisand, who joined the AARP ranks some time ago, still has her range, although she has lost some of her brio. But she makes up for that on Love Is the Answer with artful articulation and palpable emotion.

With its orchestrated jazz flavor and haunting vocals, the CD is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell's lush assortment of standards, 2000's Both Sides Now.

Love Is the Answer is also being offered in a deluxe edition with these lush arrangements supplemented by stripped-down versions of the same songs, on which Streisand is accompanied only by a Krall-led quartet.

Some songs veer toward pretension, like a stuffy "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," which resembles a bad Christmas carol.

But when Streisand's sophisticated instrument is blended just right with Krall's poised and poignant piano and Mandel's swelling strings, as on "Gentle Rain" and "Some Other Time," the result is magic.

On these two albums, Streisand and Carey, like crafty old baseball pitchers, figure out how to do more with less.