*Mariah Carey Biography*

*

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is an American Pop/R&B singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut, in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola, in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia Records' highest-selling act.

Following her separation from Mottola, in 1997, she introduced elements of hip hop into her album work, to much initial success, but her popularity was in decline when she left Columbia, in 2001. She signed a record $80 million dollar deal with Virgin Records, only to be dropped from the label and bought out of her contract in the following year. This radical turn of events was due to the highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the poor reception that was given to Glitter, her film and soundtrack project. In 2002, Carey signed with Island Records, and, after a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of pop music, in 2005, with her album, The Emancipation of Mimi.[3][4]

According to Island Def Jam, Carey has sold more than 200 million albums, singles and videos worldwide, which makes her one of the world's best-selling music artists.[5][6] Carey was cited as the world’s best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the 1998 World Music Awards[7][8] and was also named the best-selling female artist of the millennium by the same award-giving body in 2000.[9][10][11] According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the third-best-selling female artist and seventeenth overall recording artist with shipments of 63 million albums in the United States.[12][13] In 2008, Carey earned her eighteenth number one single on the Hot 100, the most for any solo artist.[14][15] Aside from her commercial accomplishments, she has earned five Grammy Awards and is known for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style and use of the whistle register.[16][17][18]

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.[19][20] Her mother was Irish American and her father was of Afro-Venezuelan and African American descent;[21] her paternal grandfather, Roberto Nuñez, changed his surname to Carey to better assimilate upon moving to the United States from Venezuela.[22] Carey was named after the song "They Call the Wind Mariah".[23] Carey's parents divorced when she was three years old.[24] While she lived in Huntington, racist neighbors allegedly poisoned the family dog and set fire to her family's car.[25] 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.[26]

Carey graduated from Harborfields High School, in Greenlawn, New York. She was frequently absent, because of her work as a demo singer for local recording studios; her classmates consequently gave her the nickname "Mirage".[27] Her work in the Long Island music scene provided opportunities to work with musicians, such as Gavin Christopher and Ben Margulies, with whom she co-wrote material for her demo tape. After she moved to New York City, she worked part-time jobs to pay the rent and she completed 500 hours of beauty school.[28] Eventually, she became a backup singer for Puerto Rican freestyle singer Brenda K. Starr.

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.[29]

Early commercial success (1989–92)
Carey co-wrote the tracks on her 1990 debut album Mariah Carey and she has co-written most of her material since. During the recording, she expressed dissatisfaction with the contributions of producers such as Ric Wake and Rhett Lawrence, whom the executives at Columbia had enlisted to help to make the album more commercially viable.[30] Critics were generally enthousiastic (See Critical reception section of the album article). Backed by a substantial promotional budget, the album reached number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, where it remained for several weeks. It yielded four number-one singles and made Carey a star in the United States but it was less successful in other countries. Critics rated the album highly, which assisted Carey's Grammy wins for Best New Artist, and—for her debut single, "Vision of Love"[31]—Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.[32] Mariah Carey was also the best selling album of 1991 in the United States.[33]

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."[34]

Although Carey performed live occasionally, stage fright prevented her from embarking on a major tour.[35] 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.[36] 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,[32] whose debut album Carey later co-produced.[37] Because of high ratings for the Unplugged television special, the concert's set list was released on the EP MTV Unplugged, which Entertainment Weekly called "the strongest, most genuinely musical record she has ever made [...] Did this live performance help her to take her first steps toward growing up?."[38]

International success (1993–96)
Carey and Tommy Mottola had become involved romantically during the making of her debut album and, in June 1993, they were married. 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.[39] It yielded her first UK Singles Chart number-one,[40] 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",[41] 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."[42] 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",[43] 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."[44] 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."[45] Most critics slighted the opening of her subsequent U.S. Music Box Tour.[46] 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..."[42]

In late 1994, after her duet with Luther Vandross on a cover of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's "Endless Love" became a hit, Carey released the holiday album Merry Christmas. It contained cover material and original compositions, such as "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became Carey's biggest single in Japan[47] and, in subsequent years, emerged as one of her most perennially popular songs on U.S. radio.[48] Critical reception of Merry Christmas was mixed, with Allmusic calling it an "otherwise vanilla set [...] pretensions to high opera on 'O Holy Night' and a horrid danceclub take on 'Joy to the World'."[49] It became one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time.[50]

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."[51] 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,[52] and publications such as The New York Times named 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."[53] 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."[54] The short but profitable Daydream World Tour augmented 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.[55] 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.[56] 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.[56] Although many critics proclaimed Daydream as the best album of 1995, she ended that night with no awards.[56] 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."[56] In 1995, due to "Daydream's" enormous Japanese sales, "Billboard" declared Carey "Artist of the year" in Japan.[57]

New image and independence (1997–2000)
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.[58] 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'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.[59] She stated that Butterfly marked the point when she attained full creative control over her music.[60] 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."[61] 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",[62] 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."[63] 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."[64] 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."[65] 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.[66] 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.[67] 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."[68] 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.[69]

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.[70] "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.[70] 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."[71] VIBE magazine expressed similar sentiments, writing, "She pulls out all stops [...] Rainbow will garner even more adoration",[72] 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."[73] and it became Carey's lowest-selling album up to that point,[60] 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.[74]

Personal and professional struggles (2001–04)
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,[75] and her relationship with Luis Miguel ended.[76] 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."[77] 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".[78] By the month's end, she had checked into a hospital and her publicist announced that Carey would take a break from public appearances.[79]

Critics panned Glitter, Carey's much delayed semi-autobiographical film and it was a box office failure.[25] 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",[80] while Blender magazine opined, "After years of trading her signature flourishes for a radio-ready purr, Carey's left with almost no presence at all."[81] The lead single, "Loverboy" (which features Cameo), reached number two on the Hot 100, due to the release of the physical single,[79] 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."[82] Later that year, she signed a contract with Island Records, valued at more than $22.5 million.[83] 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.[84]

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.[77] 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",[85] 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",[86] 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."[87] 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.[77]

"I Know What You Want", a 2003 Busta Rhymes single on which Carey guest starred, fared considerably better and reached the U.S. top five; it was also included on Columbia's release of The Remixes, a compilation of Carey's best remixes and some new tracks. That year, she embarked on the Charmbracelet World Tour and was awarded the Chopard Diamond award for selling more than 100 million albums worldwide.[88] She was featured on rapper Jadakiss's 2004 single "U Make Me Wanna", which reached the top ten on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop chart. Carey has made a legal threat against porn star Mary Carey, believing the names are too similar.[89][90]

Return to prominence (2005–08)


Carey performing on her Adventures of Mimi Tour, in Florida August 7, 2006.
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."[91] 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".,[92] 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."[93] 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.)[94][95][96][97][98] 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 [99] and The Emancipation of Mimi is classed as the best selling album of 2005 by Nielsen SoundScan [100]

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.[101] She appeared on the cover of the March, 2007, edition of Playboy magazine in a non-nude photo session.[102] In early 2007, she was featured with Bow Wow on the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony single "Lil' L.O.V.E.".