Mariah Carey‘s personal favorite title might be “Queen of Christmas,” but she has plenty more to her name: Five-time GRAMMY winner, Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, record-breaking chart-topper, and bonafide superstar — among many more.
The five-octave vocalist almost instantly became a household name upon her debut with 1990’s “Vision of Love,” which marked her first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Carey has since landed an astounding 19 atop the chart (only one behind the record-holding Beatles), and sold more than 200 million albums worldwide.
But Carey’s long list of achievements didn’t come without hard work. The Long Island native spread herself thin between waitressing, beauty school and singing backup for Brenda K. Starr, all the while penning her own music with hopes of making it as an artist herself. Then, with the help of Starr, Carey’s demo tape ended up in the hands of music mogul Tommy Mottola and the rest, as they say, is history.
After starting out her illustrious career with five multi-platinum albums in a row — including her smash holiday album Merry Christmas — Carey decided that a new musical direction was long overdue. And with that, on Sept. 16, 1997, Carey released her self-proclaimed magnum opus: Butterfly.
With contributions from Diddy, Q-Tip, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and Dru Hill, Butterfly leaned heavily toward R&B and hip-hop compared to Carey’s previous works. While a couple of tracks allude to Carey and Mottola’s deteriorating marriage, at its core, Butterfly is a coming-of-age story through the lens of a young woman who is finding her voice, becoming more independent, and enjoying her newfound liberation.
In fact, Carey loves Butterfly so much, she’s releasing eight bonus tracks on Sept. 16 to commemorate the anniversary. GRAMMY.com is also getting in on the celebration, revisiting the hits, trailblazing remixes, holiday tunes, and musical risks that made the Songbird Supreme one of the most imitated vocalists and influential artists — and why her catalog remains a blueprint.
Listen to GRAMMY.com’s official Songbook: An Essential Guide To Mariah Carey playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora. Playlist powered by GRAMMY U.
The Impressive Start
Swiftly amassing a string of No. 1 and top 10 hits, including “Vision of Love,” “Can’t Let Go,” and “Dreamlover,” Mariah Carey was on the fast track to becoming one of the top-selling artists of the ’90s before the age of 25.
Released in 1990, Carey’s eponymous debut studio album spawned an impressive four Hot 100 chart-toppers: “Vision of Love,” “Love Takes Time,” “Someday,” and “I Don’t Wanna Cry.” Carey’s five-octave range and signature whistle register made the then 20-year-old an instant success. But her producing and songwriting chops — unbeknownst to many at the time — set her apart from fellow divas Whitney Houston and Celine Dion.
To capitalize off the success of her debut album, Carey churned out her second studio effort, Emotions, a few months after earning her first two GRAMMY Awards in 1991. (She took home Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for “Vision Of Love.”) For Emotions, Carey enlisted C+C Music Factory‘s Robert Clivillés and the late David Cole for the LP’s uptempo tunes, including “Make It Happen,” as well as the lesser-known tracks “You’re So Cold” and “To Be Around You.”
The title track became Carey’s fifth No. 1 single. With this feat, she’s the only artist to have her first five singles soar to the top of the Hot 100.
In 1993, following two multi-platinum albums and a flawless MTV Unplugged performance, Carey welcomed the biggest blockbuster success of her three-decade career: Music Box. Sonically, the LP remains the most pop-leaning of Carey’s discography, with the exception of gospel-infused “Anytime You Need a Friend,” the album’s final single. Perhaps most prominently, Music Box birthed “Hero,” one of Carey’s signature songs that even the most casual fans can probably recite word for word.
The R&B Period
While Butterfly is cited as Carey’s transition from mostly pop music to R&B and hip-hop, 1995’s Daydream was her first venture in those worlds thanks to collaborations with Boyz II Men (“One Sweet Day”) and Jermaine Dupri (“Always Be My Baby”). “Underneath the Stars” pays homage to Minnie Ripperton, while “Long Ago” echoes Zapp & Roger’s “More Bounce to the Ounce” bassline.
Daydream is also notable for kicking off Carey’s long-standing tradition of autobiographical album closers. “She smiles through a thousand tears,” Carey laments in the second verse of “Looking In,” her most personal song at the time. The song served as an important shift for Carey, as it detailed her feelings of unhappiness and “adolescent fears” — despite having a highly successful music career — and showed a deeper side of the singer’s songwriting abilities.
Ahead of Butterfly‘s 25th anniversary, Carey wrote on Instagram that it’s her “favorite and probably most personal album.” Butterfly‘s lead single “Honey” and final single “My All” earned Carey two more No. 1s, but the true highlights are within the deep cuts and other singles. Despite receiving little promotion, “The Roof (Back in Time)” and “Breakdown” quickly emerged as fan favorites.
Along with a more mature sound, Carey presented a sexier image, as evidenced in the James Bond-themed music video for “Honey” that takes the album’s empowerment theme a step further. She did that lyrically as well with the Missy Elliott co-written track “Babydoll,” which contains some of Carey’s most sensual lyrics.
As the singer noted herself, Butterfly is also deeply personal. Carey recently shared that the album represented a “pivotal moment” in her life following her separation from Mottola, whom she divorced in 1998. She reportedly once stated that she penned the title track “wishing that that’s what [Tommy Mottola] would say to me,” and “Close My Eyes” intertwines the stories of Carey’s tumultuous childhood with her strained marriage. What’s more, Butterfly‘s closing track, “Outside,” chronicles her struggles growing up as a biracial person.
Carey continued her foray into more urban musical styles on 1999’s Rainbow. She joined forces with Jay-Z for the first time on lead single “Heartbreaker,” which also received a high-energy remix with Elliott and Da Brat that featured an interpolation of Snoop Dogg‘s “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None)” — further displaying her hip-hop sensibility.
Rainbow, of course, closed with a diaristic song — the gushing “Thank God I Found You,” inspired by Carey’s then-relationship with Latin star Luis Miguel — but she also sprinkled super-personal tales throughout the album. Ballads like “Can’t Take That Away (Mariah’s Theme)” and “Petals” offered fans an even deeper glimpse into Carey’s personal life.
The (Semi) Forgotten Years
Carey ushered in a new decade by making her big-screen debut in the 2001 movie Glitter. The accompanying soundtrack paid tribute to the ’80s, including the Cameo-sampling “Loverboy” and covers of Cherelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” and Indeep’s “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.”
At the time, Glitter marked her lowest first-week sales, despite showing artistic growth. Carey eventually got #JusticeForGlitter, though, as the 12-track LP is hailed as a gem among Carey’s most loyal fans — thanks to classic, yet overlooked ballads like “Never Too Far” and “Reflections (Care Enough).” (A #JusticeForGlitter campaign even sparked on social media in 2018, helping the album top the iTunes album chart 17 years after its release.)
In addition to Glitter‘s rather disappointing release, Carey was dealing with her own personal struggles: In July 2001, the singer was hospitalized for exhaustion, and in July 2002, she lost her father to cancer. She chronicled those hardships in 2002’s Charmbracelet. “And if you keep falling down, don’t you dare give in,” she sings on opener “Through the Rain.”
That same resilience and vulnerability can be heard in “My Saving Grace” and “Sunflowers for Alfred Roy,” the latter of which is named after Carey’s father. Elsewhere, Carey flexes her ability to excel in any genre, experimenting with jazz (“Subtle Invitation”) and hard rock (a cover of Def Leppard’s “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak”).
The Comeback
After two back-to-back underperforming albums with Glitter and Charmbracelet, it became easy for critics to write off Carey — that is, until the spring of 2005, when The Emancipation of Mimi arrived.
Following a moderate hit in lead single “It’s Like That,” second single “We Belong Together” proved that Mariah Carey the Chart Queen was back. Not only did the ballad spend 14 consecutive weeks at the No. 1 spot, but it was later crowned the “Song of the Decade” by Billboard.
But Carey’s reign didn’t end there. Follow-up singles “Don’t Forget About Us” and “Shake It Off” skyrocketed to No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. The album also earned her three more GRAMMYs at the 2006 GRAMMY Awards: Best Contemporary R&B Album, as well as Best R&B Song and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for “We Belong Together.” (She earned 10 nominations total in 2006 and 2007.)
The success continued with 2008’s E=MC² and 2009’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, which spawned another No. 1 (“Touch My Body” from E=MC²) and a top 10 hit (“Obsessed” from Memoirs). The albums contain some of Carey’s most carefree material (“I’m That Chick”), as well as vivid storytelling (“Betcha Gon’ Know (The Prologue)”) and a taste of her sense of humor (“Up Out My Face”).
In the 2010s, as music streaming continued to disrupt the industry, Carey once again proved her staying power, earning two top 5 albums — 2014’s Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse and 2018’s Caution — and a top 20 hit with “#Beautiful,” featuring then-rising R&B star Miguel.
The Remixes And Rarities
Carey is so dedicated to the art of the remix that she put out a double-disc project, The Remixes, in 2003. But she displayed her remix mastery nearly 10 years before that release, with the Bad Boy version of the Daydream hit “Fantasy” in 1995. When the late ODB growls, “Me and Mariah go back like babies with pacifiers” over a thumping Tom Tom Club-sampling bassline, Carey showed there were no boundaries to her music.
Over the decades, Carey has also teamed up with legendary DJs Shep Pettibone and David Morales for club versions of some of her biggest hits, including 1990’s “Someday” and 1993’s “Dreamlover.” When it comes to her best hip-hop reimaginings, standouts include “Thank God I Found You” (Make It Last Remix), “Always Be My Baby” (Mr. Dupri Mix), and “I Still Believe/Pure Imagination” (Damizza Remix), the latter of which features a genius Willy Wonka interpolation and is a true testament to Carey’s artistry.
As for B-sides, longtime fans treasure Music Box‘s “Do You Think of Me” and “Everything Fades Away” and “Slipping Away” from the Daydream sessions. In 2020, they were treated to The Rarities, a double-disc collection consisting of more B-sides and unreleased material collected throughout the decades, including a heartfelt cover of Irene Cara‘s “Out Here on My Own” and the original mix of “Loverboy,” both recorded during the Glitter era.
The Christmas Magic
Fresh off the success of her first headlining tour, Carey was at her commercial peak when she tried her hand at Christmas music in the second half of 1994.
As expected, the now-iconic Merry Christmas is packed with festive classics like “Silent Night,” “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” and “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” But it’s the original “All I Want For Christmas Is You” that emerged as a new holiday standard. And that holds true even more than 25 years after its release: In December 2021, the song became the first to top the Hot 100 four chart years in a row — 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (it held the top spot on the Jan. 1-dated chart).
In 2010, Carey’s Merry Christmas II You, an aptly-titled sequel to Merry Christmas, is known for its underrated singles, “When Christmas Comes,” a duet with John Legend, and “Oh Santa!” — which she performed alongside Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson during her star-studded Christmas special on Apple TV+, released in 2020.
The timeless success of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” earned Carey the unofficial title of “Queen of Christmas,” but her extensive catalog and artistic versatility prove she’s an icon outside of her holiday throne. Mariah Carey melded genres, influenced a generation of vocalists, and became the first artist with No. 1 singles across four decades — solidifying a legacy as the true Songbird Supreme.
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