Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey is an American singer who came to prominence in the early 1990's and quickly established herself as one of the world's most popular recording artists. She has released 11 studio albums and has sold in excess of 200 million records worldwide.

In addition to her singing career, Carey has written and produced music and also done a small amount of acting.

Life & Career

Mariah was born in Huntington, Long Island, New York, the youngest child of Patricia and Alfred Roy Carey. Her mother was a former opera singer and vocal coach, while her father was an aeronautical engineer. Her parents divorced when she was three years old, after which, Mariah had limited contact with her father.

After recognising her singing potential, her mother began to coach her, and Mariah became very active in the Long Island music scene later on as a demo singer for recording studios.

She moved to New York to persue her music career, where she met Tommy Mottola. He got hold of a copy of her demo tape, and after listening to it decided to track Carey down. He found her and managed to sign her to a recording contract with Columbia Records.

She released her self-titled debut album in 1990, and co-wrote many of the songs. The album went to number one in the USA, and spawned 4 number one singles. In addition, Carey won Grammy awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Vision Of Love.

The quickly released follow-up, Emotions (in 1991), was less successful but the title track went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Carey and Tommy Mottola, having formed a relationship from working together, got married in June 1993. In the same year, she released her third album, Music Box, which was her most commercially successful. It spawned singles Dreamlover, Without You and Hero.

In 1994, Mariah collaborated with Luther Vandross on a cover of Endless Love, and released a Christmas Album titled Merry Christmas. This contained a mix of cover versions and original material such as the single All I Want For Christmas Is You.

Carey started to experiment with Hip-Hop and R&B influences with her 1995 album Daydream. Despite reluctance from Columbia, the album became her best-selling in the USA and led to hit singles One Sweet Day and Always Be My Baby.

However, in 1997, Carey and Mottola seperated, divorcing the following year. Mariah has since cited that Mottola was a controlling force in their relationship and that the marriage wasn't as happy as it had outwardly seemed. She set out on an independent career path, and her image and music became more sexual in nature. She said of the change in direction;

I don't think 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 was going to be a rapper. Personally, this album is about doing whatever the hell I wanted to do.

The 1997 album, Butterfly was the first evidence of this break with Mottola and newfound independence.

In 1998, Carey recorded a duet with [[Whitney Houston]] for the Prince Of Egypt soundtrack, When You Believe.

Mariah's seventh album, Rainbow, was released in 1999 and featured more hip-hop influence with collaborations with Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg. Despite receiving positive reviews, it becomes the lowest selling of her career. Carey commented on her personal website that

The political situation in my professional career is not positive [...] I'm getting a lot of negative feedback from certain corporate people.

Rainbow was Mariah's final album with Columbia. In July 2001 it was reported that she had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She made an appearance on MTV's Total Request Live, where she stripped down and began handing popsicles to members of the audience.

Glitter, Mariah's semi-autobiographical film in which she also acted and recorded the soundtrack was a complete critical and commercial failure. While the lead single, Loverboy, reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, the other singles failed to chart. In 2002, Virgin bought her recording contract for $28 million, but she later signed to Island Records for just over $22 million. In 2002 her father died of cancer.

A futher album release, Charmbracelet was also critically panned, but sold moderately well.

However, after 2005, Carey's fortunes turned around: first, with the The Emancipation Of Mimi album (which spawned a 14-week long #1 single in We Belong Together). A subsequent tour, The Adventures Of Mimi Tour, was the most popular of her career.

The follow-up album, 2007's E=MC2 continued this streak of popularity (the single, Touch My Body, became a #1), but was criticised for being a clone of its predecessor.

On 30 April 2008, Mariah married the actor/rapper Nick Cannon