Life and career
1970–87: Childhood and youth
Mariah Carey was born in
Huntington,
Long Island, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia (née Hickey), a former opera singer and vocal coach, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer.
[17][18] Her mother is
Irish American and her father is of
Afro-Venezuelan and
African American descent;
[19] her paternal grandfather, Roberto Nuñez, changed his surname to Carey to better assimilate upon moving to the United States from Venezuela.
[20] Carey has two sibilings, Morgan and Alison Carey. Carey was named after the song "
They Call the Wind Mariah".
[21] Carey's parents divorced when she was three years old.
[22] While she lived in Huntington, racist neighbors allegedly poisoned the family dog and set fire to her family's car.
[23] After her parents' divorce, she had little contact with her father and her mother worked several jobs to support the family. Carey spent much of her time at home, alone, and turned to music to occupy herself. She began to sing at around the age of three, when her mother began to teach her, after Carey imitated her mother practicing
Verdi's opera
Rigoletto in Italian.
[24]1988–92: Early career
In 1988, Carey met Columbia Records executive
Tommy Mottola at a party, where Starr gave Carey's demo tape to him. Mottola played the tape when he left the party and was impressed. He returned to find Carey but she had left. Nevertheless, Mottola tracked her down and signed her to a recording contract. This
Cinderella-like story became part of the standard publicity that surrounded Carey's entrance into the industry.
[27]Carey conceived
Emotions, her second album, as an homage to
Motown soul music (see
Motown Sound), and she worked with
Walter Afanasieff and
Clivillés &
Cole (from the
dance group
C+C Music Factory) on the record. It was released soon after her debut album — in late 1991 — but was neither as critically or commercially successful (See
Promotion and reception section of the album article). The title track "
Emotions" made Carey into the only recording act whose first five singles have reached number one on the U.S.
Hot 100 chart, although the album's follow-up singles failed to match this feat. Carey had lobbied to produce her own songs and, beginning with
Emotions, she has co-produced most of her material. "I didn't want [
Emotions] to be somebody else's vision of me," she said. "There's more of me on this album."
[32]Although Carey performed live occasionally, stage fright prevented her from embarking on a major tour.
[33] Her first widely seen appearance was featured on the television show
MTV Unplugged in 1992, and she remarked that she felt that her performance that night proved her vocal abilities were not, as some had previously speculated, simulated with studio equipment.
[34] Alongside acoustic versions of some of her earlier songs, Carey premiered a cover of
The Jackson 5's "
I'll Be There", with her back-up singer
Trey Lorenz. The duet was released as a single, reached number one in the U.S. and led to a record deal for Lorenz,
[30] whose debut album Carey later co-produced.
[35] Because of high
ratings for the
Unplugged television special, the concert's set list was released on the EP
MTV Unplugged, which
Entertainment Weeklycalled "the strongest, most genuinely musical record she has ever made [...] Did this live performance help her to take her first steps toward growing up?."
[36]1993–96: First marriage, and international success
Carey and
Tommy Mottola became romantically involved during the making of her debut album and were married in June, 1993.
Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds consulted on the album
Music Box, which was released later that year and became Carey's most successful worldwide. The album maintained a presence on the
Billboard 200 for a staggering 128 weeks.
[37] It yielded her first
UK Singles Chart number-one,
[38] a cover of
Badfinger's "
Without You", and the U.S. number-ones "
Dreamlover" and "
Hero".
Billboard magazine proclaimed it "heart-piercing [...] easily the most elemental of Carey's releases, her vocal
eurythmics in natural sync with the songs",
[39] but
TIME magazine's Christopher John Farley lamented Carey's attempt at a mellower work, "[
Music Box] seems perfunctory and almost passionless [...] Carey could be a pop-soul great; instead, she has once again settled for
Salieri-like mediocrity."
[40] AllMusic adds, "Carey sounds detached on several selections. She scored a couple of huge hits, "Hero" and "Dreamlover", where she did inject some personality and intensity into the leads. Most other times, Carey blended into the background and allowed the tracks guide her, instead of pushing and exploding through them. It was wise for Carey to display other elements of her approach but, sometimes, excessive spirit is preferable to an absence of passion",
[41]and
Rolling Stone expressed mixed sentiments and said, "Some of the songs appear to be strongly influenced by other hits. "Hero," with its message of self-sufficiency, aims for the inspirational grandeur of "Greatest Love of All", while "Just to Hold You Once Again" and "All I've Ever Wanted" chase the tail of "I Will Always Love You." In fact, Music Box is so precisely calculated to be a blockbuster that its impact is ultimately a little unnerving."
[42] In response to such comments, Carey said, "As soon as you have a big success, a lot of people don't like that. There's nothing that I can do about it. All I can do is to make music that I believe in."
[43] Most critics slighted the opening of her subsequent U.S.
Music Box Tour.
[44] Farley balanced his critique with some positive observations: "The gospel flavored 'Anytime You Need A Friend' demonstrates Carey's vocal power, although too fleetingly. And the title cut is one of Carey's loveliest songs to date..."
[40]In 1995, Columbia released Carey's fourth studio album,
Daydream, which combined the pop sensibilities of
Music Box with downbeat R&B and
hip hop influences. A remix of "
Fantasy", its first single, featured rapper
Ol' Dirty Bastard. Carey said that Columbia reacted negatively to her intentions for the album: "Everybody was like 'What, are you crazy?'. They're very nervous about breaking the formula."
[49] The New Yorker noted that "It became standard for R&B stars, like Missy Eliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses." John Norris of MTV News has stated that the remix was "responsible for, I would argue, an entire wave of music that we've seen since and that is the R&B-hip-hop collaboration. You could argue that the 'Fantasy' remix was the single most important recording that she's ever made." Norris echoed the sentiments of TLC's Lisa Lopes, who told MTV that it's because of Mariah that we have "R&B."
Daydream became her biggest-selling album in the U.S. and its singles achieved similar success — "Fantasy" became the second single to debut at number one in the U.S. and topped the
Canadian Singles Chart for twelve weeks; "
One Sweet Day" (a duet with
Boyz II Men) spent a record-holding sixteen weeks at number one in the U.S.; and "
Always Be My Baby" (co-produced by
Jermaine Dupri) was the most successful record on U.S. radio in 1996, according to
Billboard magazine. The album also generated career-best reviews for Carey,
[50] and publications such as
The New York Timesnamed it as one of 1995's best albums; the
Times wrote that its "best cuts bring R&B candy-making to a new peak of textural refinement [...] Carey's songwriting has taken a leap forward and become more relaxed, sexier and less reliant on thudding clichés."
[51] and
AllMusic adds, "Daydream is her best record to date, and features a consistently strong selection of songs and a remarkably impassioned performance by Carey. A few of the songs are second-rate — particularly the cover of Journey's "Open Arms" — but Daydream demonstrates that Carey continues to perfect her craft and that she has earned her status as an R&B diva."
[52] The short but profitable
Daydream World Touraugmented sales of the album. The music industry took note of Carey's success — she won two awards at the
American Music Awards for her solo efforts:
Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and
Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist.
[53] Daydream and its tracks were respectively nominated for six categories in the
38th Grammy Awards. Carey, along with
Boyz II Men, opened the event with a performance of "One Sweet Day," which was mightily applauded.
[54] In contrast, throughout the night, she was not called to the stage to receive even one Grammy. The cameras started to focus on Carey, revealing the fact that it was becoming harder for her to retain a smile. Her disappointment was becoming obvious.
[54] Although many critics proclaimed
Daydream as the best album of 1995, she ended that night with no awards.
[54] Carey eventually was able to deal with this incident. "What can you do?" The singer asked. "I will never be disappointed again. After I sat through the whole show and didn't win once, I can handle anything."
[54] In 1995, due to "Daydream's" enormous Japanese sales, "
Billboard" declared Carey "Artist of the year" in Japan.
[55]1997–2000: New image, Butterfly and Rainbow
Carey and Mottola officially separated in 1997. Although the public image of the marriage was a happy one, she said that, in reality, she had felt trapped by her relationship with Mottola, whom she often described as controlling.
[56] They officially announced their separation in 1997 and their divorce became final in the following year. Soon after the separation, Carey hired an independent publicist and a new attorney and manager. She continued to write and produce for other artists during this period and contributedto the debut albums of
Allure and 7 Mile through her short-lived imprint
Crave Records.
Carey at Edwards Air Force Base during the making of "
I Still Believe" video in 1998.
Carey's next album,
Butterfly (1997), yielded the number-one single "
Honey", the lyrics and music video which presented a more overtly sexual image of her than had been previously seen.
[57] She stated that
Butterfly marked the point when she attained full creative control over her music.
[58]However, she added, "I don't think that it's that much of a departure from what I've done in the past [...] It's not like I went psycho and thought I would be a rapper. Personally, this album is about doing whatever the hell I wanted to do."
[59] Reviews were generally positive:
Rolling Stone wrote, "Carey couldn't have wished for a better start than "Honey," [...] it's an undeniably catchy pop record that revamps her sound and image. It's not as if Carey has totally dispensed with her old saccharine, Houston-style balladry [...] but the predominant mood of Butterfly is one of coolly erotic reverie. [... Except "Outside" the album sounds] very 1997. [...] Carey has spread her wings and she's ready to fly",
[60] LAUNCHcast said
Butterfly "pushes the envelope", a move that its critic thought "may prove disconcerting to more conservative fans" but praised as "a welcome change."
[61] The
Los Angeles Times wrote, "[
Butterfly] is easily the most personal, confessional-sounding record she's ever done [...] Carey-bashing just might become a thing of the past."
[62] and
AllMusic adds "Carey's vocals are sultrier and more controlled than ever, and that helps "Butterfly," "Break Down," "Babydoll," and the Prince cover, "The Beautiful Ones," rank among her best; also, the ballads do have a stronger urban feel than before. Even though
Butterfly doesn't have as many strong singles as
Daydream, it's one of her best records and illustrates that Carey continues to improve and refine her music, which makes her a rarity among her '90s peers."
[63] The album was a commercial success—although not to the degree of her previous three albums—and "
My All" (her thirteenth
Hot 100 number-one) gave her the record for the most U.S. number-ones by a female artist.
Toward the turn of the millennium, Carey developed the film project
Glitter and wrote songs for the films
Men in Black (1997) and
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). During the production of
Butterfly, Carey became romantically involved with
New York Yankees baseball star
Derek Jeter. Their relationship ended in 1998, with both parties citing media interference as the main reason for the split.
[64] The same year, Columbia released the album
#1's, a collection of Carey's U.S. number-one singles alongside new material, which, she said, was a way to reward her fans.
[65] The song "
When You Believe", a duet with
Whitney Houston, was recorded for the soundtrack of
The Prince of Egypt(1998) and won an
Academy Award.
#1's sold above expectations but a review in
NME labeled Carey "a purveyor of saccharine bilge like 'Hero', whose message seems wholesome enough: that if you vacate your mind of all intelligent thought, flutter your eyelashes and wish hard, sweet babies and honey will follow."
[66] Also that year, she appeared on the first televised
VH1 Divas benefit concert program, although her alleged
prima donna behavior had already led many to consider her a
diva.
[67]Rainbow, Carey's sixth studio album, was released in 1999 and comprised more R&B/hip hop–oriented songs, with many of them co-created with
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
[68] "
Heartbreaker" and "
Thank God I Found You" (the former featuring
Jay-Z, the latter featuring
Joe and boy band
98 Degrees) reached number one in the U.S.
[68] and the success of the former made Carey the only act to have a number-one single in each year of the 1990s. A cover of
Phil Collins's "
Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" went to number one in the UK, after Carey re-recorded it with boy band
Westlife. Media reception of
Rainbow was generally enthusiastic, with the
Sunday Herald saying that the album "sees her impressively tottering between soul ballads and collaborations with R&B heavyweights like
Snoop Doggy Dogg,
Usher [...] It's a polished collection of pop-soul."
[69] VIBE magazine expressed similar sentiments, writing, "She pulls out all stops [...]
Rainbow will garner even more adoration",
[70] but
AllMusic states, "It's a bit ballad-heavy, which makes Rainbow seem a little samey. Yet, that's not the only reason why the record has a weird sense of déjà vu, since this follows the same formula as its two predecessors, distinguished primarily by her newfound fondness for flashing flesh. That repetition isn't necessarily a problem, because she does formula very well and manages to appeal to both housewives as well as b-boys. Rainbow proves that she can still pull off that difficult balancing act but it's hard not to be a little disappointed that she'd didn't shake the music up a little bit more — after all, it would have been a more effective album if the heartbreak, sorrow and joy that bubbles underneath the music were brought to the surface."
[71] and it became Carey's lowest-selling album up to that point,
[58] and there was a recurring criticism that the tracks were too alike. When the
double A-side "
Crybaby" (featuring Snoop Dogg)/"
Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)" became her first single to peak outside the U.S. top twenty, Carey accused Sony of underpromoting it: "The political situation in my professional career is not positive [...] I get a lot of negative feedback from certain corporate people," she wrote, on her official website.
[72] 2001–04: Glitter, Charmbracelet and personal struggles
After she received
Billboard's Artist of the Decade Award and the World Music Award for Best-Selling Female Artist of the Millennium,
[9]Carey parted from Columbia and signed a contract with
EMI's
Virgin Records worth a reported US$80 million.
[4] She often stated that Columbia had regarded her as a commodity, with her separation from Mottola exacerbating her relations with label executives. Just a few months later, in July, 2001, it was widely reported that Carey had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She had left messages on her website that complained of being overworked,
[73] and her relationship with the Latin icon
Luis Miguel ended.
[74] In an interview the following year, she said, "I was with people who didn't really know me and I had no personal assistant. I'd do interviews all day long and get two hours of sleep a night, if that."
[75] During an appearance on MTV's
Total Request Live, to which she showed up unannounced and to the apparent bewilderment of host
Carson Daly, Carey handed out
popsicles to the audience and began what was later described as a "striptease".
[76] By the month's end, she had checked into a hospital and her publicist announced that Carey would take a break from public appearances.
[77]Critics panned
Glitter, Carey's much delayed semi-autobiographical film and it was a box office failure.
[23] The accompanying soundtrack album,
Glitter, was inspired by the music of the 1980s and featured collaborations with
Rick James and
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis; it generated Carey's worst showing on the U.S. chart. The
St. Louis Post-Dispatch dismissed it as "an absolute mess that'll go down as an annoying blemish on a career that, while not always critically heralded, was at least nearly consistently successful",
[78] while
Blendermagazine opined, "After years of trading her signature flourishes for a radio-ready purr, Carey's left with almost no presence at all."
[79] The lead single, "
Loverboy" (which features
Cameo), reached number two on the Hot 100, due to the release of the physical single,
[77] but the album's follow-up singles failed to chart; however, a live rendition/medley of the single, "
Never Too Far", made its way to number 81.
Later, in the year, Columbia released the low-charting compilation album
Greatest Hits, shortly after the failure of
Glitter, and, in early 2002, Virgin bought out Carey's contract for $28 million,
[4] and created further negative publicity. Carey later said that her time at Virgin was "a complete and total stress-fest [...] I made a total snap decision which was based on money and I never make decisions based on money. I learned a big lesson from that."
[80] Later that year, she signed a contract with
Island Records, valued at more than $22.5 million,
[81] and launched the record label
MonarC. To add further to Carey's emotional burdens, her father, with whom she had little contact since childhood, died of cancer that year.
[82]Carey,
Mira Sorvino and
Melora Walters co-starred as waitresses at a mobster-operated restaurant in the
independent film WiseGirls (2002), which premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival but went straight to cable in the U.S. Critics commended Carey for her efforts —
The Hollywood Reporter predicted, "Those scathing notices for
Glitter will be a forgotten memory for the singer once people warm up to Raychel",
[83] and Roger Friedman, referring to her as "a
Thelma Ritter for the new millennium", said, "Her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs".
[84] WiseGirls producer
Anthony Esposito cast Carey in
The Sweet Science (2006), a film about an unknown female boxer recruited by a boxing manager, but it never entered production.
[85]In 2002, she performed the American
national anthem in front of an audience at the
Super Bowl XXXVI at the
Louisiana Superdome in
New Orleans,
Louisiana. Following a well-received supporting role in the 2002 film
WiseGirls, Carey released the album
Charmbracelet, which, she said, marked "a new lease on life" for her.
[75] Sales of
Charmbracelet were moderate and the quality of Carey's vocals came under severe criticism.
The Boston Globe declared the album "the worst of her career, and revealed a voice [that is] no longer capable of either gravity-defying gymnastics or soft coos",
[86] and
Rolling Stone commented, "Carey needs bold songs that help her use the power and range for which she is famous.
Charmbracelet is like a stream of watercolors that bleed into a puddle of brown."
[87] Allmusic expressed similar sentiments and said, "There are no good songs on this record, outside of Def Leppard's power ballad classic "Bringin on the Heartbreak," which isn't even covered all that well. What is a greater problem is that Mariah's voice is shot, sounding in tatters throughout the record. Whenever she sings, there's a raspy whistle behind her thin voice and she strains to make notes throughout the record. She cannot coo or softly croon nor can she perform her trademark gravity-defying vocal runs. Her voice is damaged and there's not a moment where it sounds strong or inviting. That, alone, would be disturbing but, because the songs are formless and the production bland — another reason why the hip-hop announces itself, even though it's nowhere near as pronounced as it has been since Butterfly — her tired voice becomes the only thing to concentrate on and it's a sad, ugly thing, which makes an album - that would merely have been her worst - into something tragic."
[88]The album's only charting single in America, "
Through the Rain", was a failure on
pop radio, which had become less open to maturing "diva" stylists, such as
Celine Dion, or Carey, herself, in favor of younger singers such as
Christina Aguilera, who had vocal styles very similar to Carey's.
[75]2005–07: Return to prominence with The Emancipation of Mimi
Carey's tenth studio album,
The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), contained contributions from producers such as
The Neptunes,
Kanye West and Carey's longtime collaborator,
Jermaine Dupri. Carey said it was "very much like a party record [...] the process of putting on makeup and getting ready to go out [...] I wanted to make a record that was reflective of that."
[90] The Emancipation of Mimi became 2005's best-selling album in the U.S.
The Guardian reviewer defined it as "cool, focused and urban [... some of] the first Mariah Carey tunes in years which I wouldn't have to be paid to listen to again".,
[91] but
New York Daily News states, "Carey has brought back that trademark dog-whistle that she exploited in the callow part of her career with a vengeance and used it on 11 of the CD's 14 tracks. For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening. If no one can question the scope of Carey's voice, it's too bad that she has again used it to say nothing."
[92] The album earned a
Grammy Award for
Best Contemporary R&B Album and the single "
We Belong Together" won
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and
Best R&B Song. "We Belong Together" held the Hot 100's number-one position for fourteen weeks, her longest run at the top as a solo lead artist. Subsequently, the single "
Shake It Off" reached number two for a week, which made Carey the first female lead vocalist to have simultaneously held the Hot 100's top two positions. (While it topped the charts in 2002,
Ashanti was the "featured" singer on the number two single.)
[93][94][95][96][97] 2005 proved to be a good year for Carey, as "
We Belong Together" reached number one on
Billboard's year end chart for Hot 100 singles,
[98] and
The Emancipation of Mimi is classed as the best selling album of 2005 by
Nielsen SoundScan.
[99]In mid-2006, Carey began
The Adventures of Mimi Tour, which was the most successful of her career, although some dates had to be canceled.
[100] She appeared on the cover of the March, 2007, edition of
Playboy magazine in a non-nude photo session.
[101] Around this time, she made a legal threat against porn star
Mary Carey, believing their names were too similar.
[102][103]In 2006, Carey joined the cast of the indie film
Tennessee (2008), taking the role of an aspiring singer who flees her controlling husband and joins two brothers on a journey to find their long-lost father.
[104] The movie received mixed reviews, but most of them raved about Carey's performance and praised it as "understated and very effective."
[105][106][107][108]2007–09: E=MC², second marriage, and Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel
By spring 2007, she had begun to work on her eleventh studio album,
E=MC².
[109] Asked about the album title's meaning, Carey said "
Einstein's
theory? Physics?
Me? Hello! ...Of course I'm poking fun." She characterized the project as "
Emancipation of Mimi to the second power", and said that she was "freer" on this album than any other. Like her previous one, this album mainly concentrates on pop and
R&Bbut borrows
hip hop,
gospel and even
reggae ("Cruise Control") elements.
[110][111] Although
E=MC² was well received by most critics,
[112]some of them criticized it for being "a clone of
The Emancipation of Mimi".
[113] Bleu Magazine's critic said that the "facsimiles aren't terrible, they're just boring and forgettable at this point."
[114] Two weeks before the album's release, on April 2, 2008, "
Touch My Body", her first single from the album, became Carey's eighteenth number-one single on the
Hot 100, pushing her past
Elvis Presley into second place for the most number-one singles among all artists in the rock era, according to
Billboard magazine's revised methodology.
[115][116][117] Carey is now second only to
The Beatles, who have twenty number-one singles.
[118] The album debuted at number one on the
Billboard 200 with 463,000 copies sold, making it the biggest opening week sales of her career.
[119]Carey's singles have collectively topped the charts for seventy-nine weeks, which places her just behind Presley, who topped the charts for a combined eighty weeks.
[120] In 2008,
Billboard magazine ranked her at number six on the "
Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists", making Carey the second most successful female artist (behind
Madonna) in the history of the
Billboard Hot 100 chart.
[121] Carey has also had notable success on international charts, though not to the same degree as in the United States. Thus far, she has had two number-one singles in Britain, two in Australia, and six in Canada. Her highest-charting single in Japan peaked at number two.
[122][123][124] Carey and
actor/
comedian/
rapper Nick Cannon met while they shot Carey's music video for her second single "
Bye Bye" on a private island of the coast of
Antigua.
[125] On April 30, 2008, Carey married Cannon at her private estate on
Windermere Island in
The Bahamas.
[126][127][128][129] In October 2008, Carey was inducted into the
Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
[130][131] Carey had a
cameo appearance in
Adam Sandler's 2008 film
You Don't Mess with the Zohan, playing herself.
[23][132]
Carey performing live in Las Vegas in 2009
Carey's twelfth studio album,
Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel was released on September 25, 2009. The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics.
[144] John Bush of
Allmusic called it "her most interesting album in a decade",
[145] while Jon Caramanica from
The New York Times criticized Carey's vocal performances, decrying her overuse of her softer vocal registers at the expense of her more powerful lower and mid registers.
[146] Commercially, the album debuted at number three on the
Billboard 200 and became the lowest-selling studio album of her career.
[147] The album's lead single, "
Obsessed", became her 40th entry on the
BillboardHot 100 and her highest debut on the chart since "
My All" in 1998.
[148] The song debuted at number eleven and peaked at number seven on the chart and became Carey's 27th US top-ten hit, tying her with
Elton John and
Janet Jackson as the fifth most top-ten hits.
[149] Within hours after the song's release, various outlets speculated that its target was rapper
Eminem, in response to his song "Bagpipes from Baghdad," in which he taunted Carey's husband,
Nick Cannon by telling him to back off and that Carey is his.
[150][151][152][153] According to MTV, Carey alludes to drug problems in "Obsessed," which Eminem opened up about on his sixth studio album,
Relapse.
[154] The album's follow-up singles failed to achieve commercial success. The second single, a cover of
Foreigner's "
I Want to Know What Love Is", peaked at number 60 and the third single, "
H.A.T.E.U.", failed to crack the
Billboard Hot 100.
[155]On December 31, 2009, Carey embarked her seventh concert tour,
Angels Advocate Tour, which visited the United States and Canada.
[156][157] Later it was announced that Carey would release two remix albums of
Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel; titled
Angels Advocate (an R&B remix album featuring a collection of newly remixed duets with some of Carey's favorite artists) and
MC vs JS (a dance album entirely remixed by the
Jump Smokers). In January 2010, "
Up Out My Face" featuring
Nicki Minaj and "
Angels Cry" featuring
Ne-Yowere released as the lead singles from
Angels Advocate.
[158][159] Both albums were slated for a March 2010 release, but were eventually cancelled.
[160]2010–present: Merry Christmas II You and pregnancy
Following the cancellation of the remix albums, it was announced that Carey will go back to the studio to start work on her second Christmas album and her 13th studio album. Fashion photographer
David LaChapelle told
The Times on April 24, 2010, that he shot the album's artwork.
[161] Long time collaborators for the project include
Jermaine Dupri and
Bryan-Michael Cox.
[162] Dupri stated that a single will be released by the end of 2010.
Johntá Austin and
Randy Jackson are also contributing to the project.
[163]During a press conference in
Seoul,
South Korea, in August 2010,
Island Def Jam executive Matt Voss announced that the Christmas album would be out in November 2
[165] and will include six new songs and a remix of her all time classic hit "
All I Want for Christmas Is You".
[166] The album will be titled
Merry Christmas II You, a follow-up to her 1994 multiplatinum album
Merry Christmas. An accompanying DVD was released alongside the CD.
[167] Carey has produced and recorded tracks with the Broadway producer
Marc Shaiman for the album.
[168] The album debuted at #4 on the
Billboard 200 with sales of 56,000 copies, surpassing the opening week sales of Carey's previous holiday album
Merry Christmas of 45,000 copies 16 years prior, and making
Merry Christmas II You Carey's 16th top 10 album.
[169] The album also debuted at #1 on the
R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top this chart,
[170] and also hit number #1 on the Holiday Albums Chart.
[171]After much media spectulation, on October 28, 2010, Carey confirmed that she and Cannon are pregnant, and that they were due in spring 2011. Carey stated that she struggled to keep the news a secret.
[172] She also revealed that they have yet to find out the gender of the baby
[173] and that she conceived naturally. She added that she had been pregnant shortly after her wedding with Nick Cannon, but that she miscarried. Carey and Cannon decided to keep the matter private.
[174] Following allegations that Mariah accidentally revealed that the couple were expecting twins during an radio interview by referring to the child as 'they',
[175] Nick stated that Carey is due one child, not twins.
[176]However, Nick refused to say how many babies his wife was expecting to E! News, but admitted that by saying 'they', Mariah 'wasn't wrong'.
[177] On December 16, 2010, Nick Cannon announced that he and Mariah were in fact going to have twins.
[178]On December 12, 2010, Carey was the featured performer on the annual television special
Christmas in Washington, airing live on pay-per-view in select cities worldwide. The U.S. network television premiere was December 17 via the
TNT network.
Artistry
Carey has said that from childhood she has been influenced by R&B and soul musicians such as
Billie Holiday,
Sarah Vaughan,
[179] Gladys Knight and
Aretha Franklin.
[180] Her music contains strong influences of
gospel music, she attends an Episcopal church
[181] and her favorite gospel singers include
The Clark Sisters,
Shirley Caesar and
Edwin Hawkins.
[179] When Carey incorporated hip-hop into her sound, speculation arose that she was making an attempt to take advantage of the genre's popularity, but she told
Newsweek, "People just don't understand. I grew up with this music".
[182] She has expressed appreciation for rappers such as
The Sugarhill Gang,
Eric B. & Rakim, the
Wu-Tang Clan,
The Notorious B.I.G. and
Mobb Deep,
[27] with whom she collaborated on the single "
The Roof (Back in Time)" (1998).
During Carey's career, her vocal and musical style, along with her level of success, has been compared to
Whitney Houston and
Celine Dion. Carey and her peers, according to Garry Mulholland, are "the princesses of wails [...] virtuoso vocalists who blend chart-oriented pop with mature
MOR torch song".
[183] In
She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul (2002), writer Lucy O'Brien attributed the comeback of
Barbra Streisand's "old-fashioned showgirl" to Carey and Dion, and described them and Houston as "groomed, airbrushed and overblown to perfection".
[184] Carey's musical transition and use of more revealing clothing during the late 1990s were, in part, initiated to distance herself from this image, and she subsequently said that most of her early work was "schmaltzy MOR".
[184] Some have noted that unlike Houston and Dion, Carey co-writes her own songs, and the
Guinness Rockopedia (1998) classified her as the "songbird supreme".
[185]Despite the fact that Carey is often credited with co-writing her material, she has also been accused of plagiarism on several occasions. Many of these cases were eventually settled out of court.
[186][187][188]Voice
Mariah Carey possesses a
five-octave vocal range, and was ranked first in a 2003
MTV and
Blender magazine countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, as voted by fans and readers in an online poll. Carey said of the poll, "What it really means is voice of the MTV generation. Of course, it's an enormous compliment, but I don't feel that way about myself."
[189] She also placed second in
Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists".
[190] Regarding her voice, Carey states,
"I have
nodules on my vocal cords. My mother says I've had them since I was a kid. That's why I have the high register and the belting register and I can still be husky. The only thing that really affects my voice is sleep. Sometimes if I'm exhausted, I can't hit the really high notes."
[191] "My doctors showed me my vocal cords and why I can hit those high notes. It's a certain part of the cord that not many people use—the very top. My natural voice is low. I have a raspy voice. I'm really more of an
alto. But my airy voice can be high if I'm rested. [...] When I was little, I'd talk in this really high whisper, and my mom would be like, "You're being ridiculous." I thought if I can talk like that I can sing like that. So I started [she goes higher and higher and higher] just messing around with it. I'd practice and practice, and she'd be like, "You're gonna hurt yourself." I'd tell her, It doesn’t hurt/ If I were to try and belt two octaves lower than that, that would be a strain."
[192]
"The low register is "tired", "distended."
[193][194] The medium is "pleasurable and possesses an ample
vibrato."
[194] The
belting register is "pure, full, ample and warm, but this register is often forced, scratchy above E-flat one octave and an half above middle C [E
♭5]." The
head voice as well as the
whistle register are "pure, bright and ample, with an impressive power until B nearly three octaves above middle C [B6]."
[194]
Vocal pedagogue Jeannette Lo Vetri make the same findings, stating,
"Although she can reaches alto bottom notes, she does not have a good control of the low register. Until she stays in soprano bottom range, it's easy, well mastered, but when she passes in mezzo or contralto low range, the sound is unhealthy. In contrast, she possesses a superb top. It's crystal-clear—thought sometimes it's breathy—it's effortless, agile, sweet, and luminous. She also have rounded, warm, full medium and upper chest register, especially in 1996. Though the medium is often breathy and thin—for example: "Butterfly", "Without You" or "Against All Odds"—and that her highest notes in upper chest register sometimes sounds strained and raspy—like the high E's in "Butterfly", the high F at the end of "Prisoner" or the high D's at the end of 'Make It Happen'."
[195]
Sasha Frere-Jones of
The New Yorker adds her timbre possesses various colors, saying, "Carey's sound changes with nearly every line, mutating from a steely tone to a vibrating growl and then to a humid, breathy coo."
[196] Her wide vocal range allows Carey to take melodies from
alto bottom notes to
coloratura soprano upper register,
[92][196] and, according to music critic Jim Faber of
New York Daily News, she can "cover all the
octaves between [those
voice types], and [possesses] the agility to move between ... with swiftness and aplomb."
[92] Carey also possesses what she calls "whisper register". In an interview with the singer, Ron Givens of
Entertainment Weekly described it this way, "[f]irst, a rippling, soulful
ooh comes rolling effortlessly from her throat: alto. Then, after a quick breath, she goes for the stratosphere, with a sound that nearly changes the barometric pressure in the room. In one brief swoop, she seems to squeal and roar at the same time: whisper register."
[197]Voice experts praise Carey's
vocal technique, like Stephen Holden who said, "[s]he can deliver very accurate
staccatos as well as tricky
melismas, and she possesses a beautiful and solid
trill in upper register".
[194] Jeanette Lo Vetri states, "Carey is really a great technician. The staccatos are pin point, executed with amazing speed and control, the
legato is a marvel of smoothness, she is the supreme mistress of melismas, she always keeps a neutral larynx position— except sometimes in her lower register— and she glides effortlessly from bottom to top and vice versa."
[195] Malcolm Walker adds her vocal lines are "very well led, especially in
piano register."
[193]Themes and musical style
Love is the subject of the majority of Carey's lyrics, although she has written about themes such as
racism,
social alienation,
death,
world hunger, and
spirituality. She has said that much of her work is partly autobiographical, but
TIME magazine wrote: "If only Mariah Carey's music had the drama of her life. Her songs are often sugary and artificial—
NutraSweet soul. But her life has passion and conflict."
[198] Rolling Stone expressed similar sentiments, saying, "Carey has a remarkable vocal gift, but to date, unfortunately, her singing has been far more impressive than expressive",
[199]"She wails notes that don't need emphasizing, then whispers what would ordinarily be climactic phrases, and the outcome doesn't make emotional or musical sense."
[200]New York Daily News continues in the same direction, saying, "For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening. If no one can question the scope of Carey's voice it's too bad she has again used it to say nothing."
[92] The Village Voice wrote in 2001 that, in that respect, Carey compared unfavorably with singers such as
Mary J. Blige, saying "Carey's
Strawberry Shortcake soul still provides the template with which
teen-pop cuties draw curlicues around those centerless
[Diane] Warren ballads [...] it's largely because of [Blige] that the new R&B demands a greater range of emotional expression, smarter poetry, more from-the-gut testifying, and less unnecessary notes than the squeaky-clean and just plain squeaky Mariah era. Nowadays it's the
Christina Aguileras and
Jessica Simpsons who awkwardly oversing, while the women with roof-raising lung power keep it in check when tune or lyric demands."
[201] Carey's output makes use of
electronic instruments such as
drum machines,
keyboards and synthesizers. Many of her songs contain piano music, and she was given piano lessons when she was six years old. Carey said that she cannot read
sheet music and prefers to collaborate with a pianist when composing her material, but feels that it is easier to experiment with faster and less conventional
melodies and
chord progressions using this technique. Some of her
arrangements have been inspired by the work of musicians such as
Stevie Wonder, a soul pianist to whom Carey once referred as "the genius of the [twentieth] century",
[27] but she has said, "My voice is my instrument; it always has been."
[202]Carey began commissioning
remixes of her material early in her career and helped to spearhead the practice of recording entirely new vocals for remixes.
[203] Disc jockey
David Morales has collaborated with Carey several times, starting with "
Dreamlover" (1993), which popularized the tradition of remixing R&B songs into
house records, and which
Slant magazine named one of the greatest dance songs of all time.
[204]From "
Fantasy" (1995) onward, Carey enlisted both hip hop and house producers to re-imagine her album compositions.
Entertainment Weekly included two remixes of "Fantasy" on a list of Carey's greatest recordings compiled in 2005:
[205] a National Dance Music Award-winning remix produced by Morales, and a
Sean Combs production featuring rapper
Ol' Dirty Bastard. The latter has been credited with popularizing the R&B/hip hop collaboration trend that has continued into the 2000s through artists such as
Ashanti and
Beyoncé.
[203][206]Combs said that Carey "knows the importance of mixes, so you feel like you're with an artist who appreciates your work—an artist who wants to come up with something with you".
[27] She continues to consult on remixes by producers such as Morales, Jermaine Dupri,
Junior Vasquez and
DJ Clue, and guest performers contribute frequently to them.
Legacy
Carey's vocal style and singing ability has significantly impacted popular and contemporary music. Music critic G. Brown from
The Denver Post wrote, "For better or worse, Mariah Carey's five-octave range and melismatic style have influenced a generation of pop singers."
[207]According to
Rolling Stone, "Her mastery of melisma, the fluttering strings of notes that decorate songs like "
Vision of Love," inspired the entire
American Idol vocal school, for better or worse, and virtually every other female R&B singer since the Nineties."
[208] Beyoncé Knowlescredits Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love," as influencing her to begin practicing vocal "runs" as a child, as well as helping her pursue a career as a musician.
[209] Carey is also credited for introducing R&B and hip-hop into mainstream pop culture, and for popularizing rap as a featuring act through her post-1995 songs.
[209] Sasha Frere-Jones, editor of
The New Yorker commented, "It became standard for R&B stars like
Missy Elliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses. And young white pop stars—including
Britney Spears,
'N Sync, and
Christina Aguilera—have spent much of the past ten years making pop music that is unmistakably R&B."
[209] According to Pier Dominguez, author of
Christina Aguilera: a star is made : the unauthorized biography, Aguilera has stated how she loved listening to
Whitney Houston, but it was Carey who had the biggest influence on her vocal styling. Carey's carefully choreographed image of a grown woman's image, struck a chord on Aguilera. Her influence on Aguilera also grew from the fact that both were of mixed heritage.
[210] Philip Brasor, editor of "
The Japan Times," expressed how Carey's vocal and melismatic style even influenced Asian singers. He wrote regarding Japanese superstar
Utada Hikaru, "Utada sang what she heard, from the diaphragm and with her own take on the kind of melisma that became de rigueur in American pop after the ascendance of Mariah Carey."
[211]
Carey at Edwards Air Force Base during the making of "
I Still Believe" video in 1998.
In a career spanning over 20 years, Carey has sold over 200 million albums, singles, and videos worldwide, making her
one of the biggest-selling artists in music history. Carey is ranked as the best-selling female artist of the
Nielsen SoundScan era, with over 52 million copies sold.
[5][6][212] Possessing a
five-octave vocal range, Carey was ranked first in
MTV and
Blender magazine's 2003 countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, and was placed second in
Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists".
[189][190][213] Aside from her voice, she has become known for her songwriting.
Yahoo Music editor, Jason Ankeny wrote, "She earned frequent comparison to rivals Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but did them both one better by composing all of her own material."
[214] According to
Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States.
[215] At the 2000
World Music Awards, Carey was given a Legend Award for being the "best-selling female pop artist of the millennium," as well as the "Best-selling artist of the 90s" in the United States, after releasing a series of albums of multi-platinum status in Asia and Europe, such as
Music Box and
Number 1's.
[216][217] She is also a recipient of the
Chopard Diamond Award in 2003, recognizing sales of over 100 million albums worldwide.
[10][11] Additionally, the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) lists Carey as the third best-selling female artist, with shipments of over 63 million units in the U.S.
[218][219] In
Japan, Carey has the top four highest-selling albums of all time by a non-Asian artist.
[220][221]Carey has spent a record 79 weeks at the number-one position on
Billboard Hot 100, becoming the artist with the most weeks at number-one in U.S. chart history.
[222] On that same chart, she has accumulated 18 number-one singles, making her the solo artist with the most number-one singles in the chart's history.
[12][13] In 1994, Carey released her holiday album "
Merry Christmas", which became
one of the best-selling Christmas album of all time, selling over 12 million copies.
[223][224] It also produced the successful single, "
All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became the only holiday song and
ringtone to reach multi-platinum status in the U.S.
[225] In
Japan,
Number 1's has sold over 3,250,000 copies and is the
best-selling album of all time in Japan by a non-Asian artist.
[226] Her hit single "
One Sweet Day", which featured
Boyz II Men, spent sixteen consecutive weeks at the top of
Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 1996, setting the record for the
most weeks atop the Hot 100 chart in history.
[212] After Carey's success in Asia with
Merry Christmas,
Billboard estimated Carey as the all time best-selling international artist in Japan.
[227] In 2008,
Billboard magazine listed "We Belong Together" ninth on The
Billboard: All-Time Hot 100 Top Songs[228] and the most successful song of the first decade of the 21st century.
[229] In 2009, Carey's song
Obsessed became her 12th Platinum single, the most by any female artist.
[230] Also in 2009, Carey's cover of
Foreigner's classic, "
I Want to Know What Love Is" became the longest-running number-one song in Brazilian singles chart history, spending 27 consecutive weeks at number-one.
[231] Additionally, Carey has had three songs debut at number-one on the
Billboard Hot 100: "
Fantasy", "
One Sweet Day" and "
Honey", making her the artist with the most number-one debuts in the chart's 52 year history.
[232] Also, she is the first female artist to debut at number 1 in the U.S. with "
Fantasy".
[233] In 2010, Careys 13th and second christmas album,
Merry Christmas II You debuted at #1 on the
R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top this chart.
[170]On November 19, 2010
Billboard magazine named Carey in their "Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years" chart at #4.
[234]Philanthropy and other activities
Carey is a philanthropist who has donated time and money to organizations such as the
Fresh Air Fund. She became associated with the Fund in the early 1990s, and is the co-founder of a camp located in
Fishkill, New York, that enables inner-city youth to embrace the arts and introduces them to career opportunities. The camp was called
Camp Mariah "for her generous support and dedication to Fresh Air children",
[235] and she received a Congressional Horizon Award for her youth-related charity work.
[236] She is well-known nationally for her work with the
Make-a-Wish Foundation in granting the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses, and in November 2006 she was awarded the Foundation's Wish Idol for her "extraordinary generosity and her many wish granting achievements".
[237] Carey has volunteered for the
New York City Police Athletic League and contributed to the
obstetrics department of
New York Presbyterian Hospital Cornell Medical Center. A percentage of the sales of
MTV Unplugged was donated to various other charities. In 2008, Carey was named Hunger Ambassador of the
World Hunger Relief Movement. She is giving a free download of her song, "
Love Story", to customers who donate to the organization at participating restaurants.
[238] In February 2010, the song, "
100%", which was originally written and recorded for the film,
Precious,
[239] was used as one of the theme songs for the
2010 Winter Olympics, with all money proceeds going to
Team USA.
[240]One of Carey's most high-profile benefit concert appearances was on VH1's 1998
Divas Live special, during which she performed alongside other female singers in support of the Save the Music Foundation. The concert was a ratings success, and Carey participated in the
Divas 2000 special. In 2007, the Save the Music Foundation honored Carey at their tenth gala event for her support towards the foundation since its inception.
[241] She appeared at the
America: A Tribute to Heroes nationally televised fundraiser in the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks, and in December 2001, she performed before peacekeeping troops in
Kosovo. Carey hosted the
CBS television special
At Home for the Holidays, which documented real-life stories of adopted children and foster families,
[242] and she has worked with the New York City Administration for Children's Services. In 2005, Carey performed for
Live 8 in London and at the
Hurricane Katrina relief telethon "Shelter from the Storm". In August 2008, Carey and other singers recorded the charity single, "
Just Stand Up" produced by
Babyface and
L. A. Reid, to support "
Stand Up to Cancer". On September 5, the singers performed it live on TV.
[243]
Declining offers to appear in commercials in the United States during her early career, Carey was not involved in brand marketing initiatives until 2006, when she participated in endorsements for
Intel Centrino personal computers and launched a jewelry and accessories line for teenagers, Glamorized, in American
Claire's and Icing stores.
[244][245] During this period, as part of a partnership with
Pepsi and
Motorola, Carey recorded and promoted a series of exclusive
ringtones, including "
Time of Your Life".
[246] She signed a licensing deal with the cosmetics company
Elizabeth Arden, and in 2007, she released her own fragrance, "
M".
[247][248] According to
Forbes, Carey was the sixth richest woman in entertainment as of January 2007, with an estimated net worth of US $225 million.
[249] Carey directed or co-directed several of the music videos for her singles during the 1990s.
Slant magazine named the video for "The Roof (Back in Time)", which Carey co-directed with
Diane Martel, one of the twenty greatest music videos of all time.
[250] In 2008, Carey made
Time's annual
list of 100 most Influential people.
[251][252][253] In January 2010, Carey announced via
Twitter that she is launching a new
rosé champagne brand called Angel Champagne
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