Mariah Carey is a strange case indeed. The superstar diva as very nice girl.
Married to Tommy Motolla ofColumbia at the start of her career, Tommy pushed the hell out of her and good eason, Mariah’s seven octave voice is an instrument of exquisite power and precision that fostered on the world # 1 single after # 1 single.
Indeed if you listen to her album # 1 you maybe surprised how many there are because not all of them have withstood the test of time. Mariah improves on the quality of her material -and some of it is shockingly middlebrow Middle Of the Road, it hasn’t stood the test of time.
Mottola is old school and in the early nineties was positioning Mariah to take over Whitney’s position but after the divorce Carey re-positioned herself as a hip hop Diva, recording with ODB and S Dot carter himself.
After her first relaunch Butterfly -a real good album, Carey was all over the place reaching a nadir on Glitter though a quick spin of the album should prove it wasn’t a substantial fall in quality. What happened was after her ill fated romance with Derek Jeter and worse fated romance with Eminem she broke down and the public perception of her faltered.
Live she was excellent and still is excellent. A caring, extremely sweet public persona who gives divadom a good name!!
In 2005 The Emacipation Of Mimi brought Mariah all the way back to the top. It is a very good album and the best selling album of that year. The rest of the decade has been pretty good as well if not quite there.
Still, for someone who has sold more records than anyone else for knocking on twenty years it is still pretty damn good stuff and her voice has lost nothing over the years. I am going to see her at MSG on New Year’s Eve and I CAN NOT WAIT!!!