Mariah Carey

With a stunning seven-octave voice that she put through stratospheric gymnastics, Mariah Carey became an overnight star. Her vocal prowess and range drew comparisons to Minnie Riperton and Yma Sumac, but most often to her contemporary Whitney Houston. Yet unlike Houston, Carey cowrote or coproduced her own gospel-inflected, dance-pop songs and ardent ballads. These have found immense popularity: Carey is the best-selling female artist of all time, with more than 140 million albums and singles sold worldwide. She was the only artist to have scored a #1 hit in every year of the '90s, and (at this writing) has had more #1 hits for more weeks at #1 than any other artist in history. In October 1999 she surpassed the Beatles' long-running record of 59 weeks at #1.

Carey was born to a black Venezuelan aeronautics engineer father and an Irish-American opera singer mother who also worked as a voice coach. The couple divorced when Mariah was three, and she moved with her mother to successive towns in suburban Long Island, New York. At 17 she moved to New York City and pursued a career in music while supporting herself as the self-professed “world’s worst waitress.”

Carey befriended keyboardist Ben Margulies, with whom she began writing songs, and landed backup singing jobs. One, with minor late-’80s dance-music singer Brenda K. Starr, proved crucial when Starr met Columbia Records chief Tommy Mottola at a party and gave him a demo tape of Carey’s songs. Mottola reportedly played the tape in his car on his way home, and doubled back to the party to seek out Carey. He signed her and made her career development a top priority. Carey’s debut album (#4, 1990) yielded #1 hit singles in “Vision of Love” (1990), “Love Takes Time” (1990), “Someday” (1991), and “I Don’t Wanna Cry” (1991), and brought her Grammy Awards in 1991 for Best New Artist and Best Female Vocalist. Emotions (#1, 1991) continued Carey’s roll, with such hits as the title track (#1, 1991), “Can’t Let Go” (#2, 1991), and “Make It Happen” (#5, 1992). Unplugged produced a hit cover of the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There” (#1, 1992), which also led to a solo recording deal for Trey Lorenz, the backup singer featured on the single with Carey.

In June 1993 Carey married Mottola, a man 20 years her senior. She then released Music Box (#1, 1993), which promptly yielded the #1 hits “Dreamlover” and “Hero.” In fall 1993 she embarked on her first concert tour, for which she received mixed reviews. Her 1994 Christmas album spawned the hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

Carey achieved a milestone with the 1995 release of Daydream, which debuted at #1. The first single, “Fantasy,” debuted at the top as well. With Daydream, Carey became the first female artist in history to have three albums that each sold more than 8 million copies. The second single, “One Sweet Day,” a duet with the Philadelphia R&B vocal group Boyz II Men, also hit #1, holding the spot for a record-setting 16 weeks. A third single, “Always Be My Baby,” followed suit, completing the hat trick.

Carey and Mottola divorced in 1997. She released Butterfly (#1, 1997), which asserted a stronger hip-hop flavor and yielded the #1 hits “Honey” (with rappers Ma$e and the Lox) and “My All.” #1’s collected Carey’s 13 chart-topping singles, with four new tracks, including “When You Believe” (from The Prince of Egypt), a duet with Whitney Houston.

The 1999 release of the multiplatinum Rainbow (#2, 2000), which produced a #1 single in “Heartbreaker,” capped a decade in which Carey was its biggest-selling female artist. Musically, the singer continued to embrace hip-hop elements, emphasizing samples and inviting such rap stars as Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Da Brat, and Snoop Dogg to make guest vocal appearances. In early 2001 Carey signed a multirecord, multimillion-dollar deal with Virgin. It was announced her first Virgin release would be the soundtrack to the film All That Glitters, in which Carey played the lead.

After a decade of enormous commercial success and high-profile relationships, Carey began to show signs of emotional and psychological fatigue. She announced in late 2001 that she was retreating from public appearances. Charmbracelet, released in 2003, petered and fizzled in the eyes of many critics, failing to provide any indications of new inspiration since her hiatus. However The Emancipation of Mimi (2005) garnered several Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album and Best R&B Song for “We Belong Together.”from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)