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Mariah Carey - Biography |
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One of the most commercially
successful pop performers of the 1990s, vocalist Mariah Carey was the
third child of black/Hispanic aeronautical engineer Alfred Carey and Irish
opera singer/voice coach Patricia Hickey -- a mix that made her the target
of persistent racial prejudice throughout her childhood. The hostility
against mixed marriages still persisting in New York at the time
ultimately brought about her parents' divorce in the early 70s, putting
Hickey in the position of having to keep multiple jobs in order to support
her children on her own. By the age of 3, Mariah had already begun to show
an enthusiasm for singing, and would sometimes accompany her mother while
she rehearsed; taking note of her daughter's interest, Hickey initiated
her vocal training soon afterwards. Singing quickly became the center of
the young Mariah's existence. Her first public performance took place at
the age of 6, and her schoolwork went largely ignored in favor of anything
that could further her dream of becoming a star.
During her high school years, Carey made frequent trips to Manhattan in
order to immerse herself in the professional music scene. After graduating
in 1987, she immediately made a full-time move to the city -- sharing an
apartment with two friends and attending beauty school, while supporting
herself with a variety of menial jobs. In that first year, as much time as
possible was spent in the studio, writing or creating demo tapes. Her
entrance into the music business arrived the following year, when a friend
convinced her to audition as a backing vocalist for Brenda K. Starr: Carey
had little difficulty passing the audition, and Starr subsequently made it
possible for the young singer to put one of her demo recordings in the
hands of Sony/Columbia bigshot Tommy Mottola. The executive had been in
search of a female performer who could compete with the success of rival
label Arista's recording artist Whitney Houston, and a contract for Carey
with Columbia was arranged in short order.
Work on Carey's debut continued between 1989 and 1990, maintained under
the close supervision of a committee of Columbia executives seeking to
maximize the album's "hit potential". The release finally materialized in
June of 1990 and (as intended) was met with immediate commercial success,
the singles Vision of Love, Love Takes Time, Someday, and I Don't Wanna
Cry all taking their turn at the #1 position, and the album itself
reaching the top of the mainstream pop charts. Grammys for Best New Artist
and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (for Vision of Love) arrived the
following year. Carey's next two releases were given a slightly more
restrained but still enthusiastic response: 1991's Emotions reaching #4
and earning her a fifth #1 single with the title track, while her 1992 MTV
Unplugged EP reached #3 and featured a sixth #1 song in the form of the
Jackson 5 cover I'll Be There. By this time Carey had assumed greater
control over her output and significantly expanded on the production role
she had taken on her first album; the Unplugged appearance also finally
dispelled rumors that her unusually high vocal range was a product of
studio trickery.
Having managed to establish herself amongst the most lucrative recording
artists in the world, by 1993 Carey was already hard at work making all of
the mistakes that typically accompany a sudden rise to fame. One of the
more significant of these arrived in June of that year, when she took
artist/management relations a little too far by marrying label head
Mottola. Marrying the boss had it's perks, however, and her third studio
release Music Box was given an enormous promotional push, making it her
most successful release since her debut. Music Box not only returned her
to the top of the album charts, but also added two more number one singles
to her catalog, Dreamlover and Hero; the album's third single, a cover of
Badfinger's Without You, made a respectable showing at #3 in early 1994
and provided the singer with her first UK #1.
After releasing the popular Christmas collection Merry Christmas at the
end of 1994 (and no doubt the world needed yet another Christmas album),
Carey made a stylistic shift towards R&B and hip-hop with her fifth studio
effort Daydream (1995), surpassing the sales of even her first album as a
result. Three more number one singles were included on the release --
Fantasy, Always Be My Baby and the Boyz II Men collaboration One Sweet Day
-- and the album itself put her name back at the top of the mainstream
charts for several more weeks. This genre-mixing direction was continued
for the follow-up Butterfly (1997), an album whose title referred to her
"emergence" from the stifling cocoon of her marriage to Mottola, which
would be officially dissolved in 1998. Butterfly gave the singer not only
another number one album and two more number one singles (Honey and My All
-- her twelfth and thirteenth, respectively), but earned her some of the
most positive critical notices of her career as well. The packaging and
promotional videos for the album also revealed Carey moving away from the
coy persona of her early career and assuming a more sexually aggressive
public image.
In addition to the developments in her personal and performing life, the
second half of the 1990s saw Carey establishing herself as an arranger
and/or producer for other artists: Michael Bolton, Allure, Jermaine Dupri,
7 Mile, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Blaque and even Placido Domingo amongst
them. The singer closed the decade with her seventh studio effort Rainbow
(1999), which reinforced her ties to hip-hop through guest appearances by
rappers Jay-Z, Da Brat, Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg, Mystikal and Master P.
While still a huge commercial success by any reasonable standards, the
album proved to be one of lowest-selling releases of her career up to that
point, and was the first since Emotions not to reach #1 (it shows how
astonishingly shallow and irrational the music industry (and its
inhabitants) can be that a multi-million seller could be considered "a
disappointment"). The release of Rainbow marked the end of her
relationship with Sony/Columbia, and an extravagant contract with EMI was
subsequently arranged in 2001.
The stress of her enormous celebrity inevitably caught up with Carey in
the 00s, first revealing itself in the form of erratic behavior during
personal appearances and culminating in a withdrawal from the public and a
brief period of hospitalization at a psychiatric hospital. This breakdown
came in the midst of preparations for the release of her
semi-autobiographical film Glitter (2001) and its accompanying soundtrack
album, both of which were given a harsh reception from both critics and
the public upon their arrival later in the year: the film in particular
fared extremely poorly at the box office and has been numbered by some
sources amongst the worst movies ever made. The album version suffered a
corresponding drop from her usual sales, but still easily reached a tally
in the millions. Spooked by the dual disaster, EMI paid the singer out of
her contract in early 2002.
In 2002 Carey managed to restore some of her acting credibilty through a
role in the independent film production WiseGirls, also starring Mira
Sorvino and Melora Walters; the recording side of her reputation did not
recover quite so quickly, however, and Charmbracelet (2002) -- the
singer's first album for the Def Jam label -- had some critics prematurely
writing obituaries for her music career. Guest appearances on songs by
rappers Busta Rhymes (in 2003) and Jadakiss (in 2004) were given a more
optimistic appraisal, while also providing some renewed chart action. A
dramtic turnaround in Carey's fortunes was subsequently made in 2006 with
the album The Emancipation of Mimi, which once again found her making an
immediate jump to the top of the album charts. Two more #1 singles (We
Belong Together and Don't Forget About Us) were also launched by the
release, as well the #2 entry Shake It Off. |
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Mariah Carey - Personal Quotes |
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"This is for all of you out there tonight, reaching for a dream -
don't ever give up! Never ever listen to anyone, when they try to
discourage you, because they do that, believe me!" (Madison Square
Garden, 1995)
"Forget the image, forget the ensemble, forget the rumours, forget
the short skirts, the big hair, whatever! I owe this to the fans and
I will never forget you so I want to accept this award on behalf of
all of you. We've come a long way and I feel like I'm just getting
started. Because as an artist, and most importantly as a person, I
am genuinely happy to finally be free to be who I am. Thank you." -
Mariah sticks it to the critics at the 1999 Billboard Music Awards.
"There is a light at the end of the tunnel...hopefully it's not a
freight train!"
"Music is what I love and it's what I feel and it's in me and to
know that I can do something that I enjoy and hopefully bring some
enjoyment to other people through what I do is an incrediable
feeling and I am just really thankful for it"
"One person could say "Hero is a schmaltzy piece of garbage, but
another person can write me a letter and say, 'I've considered
commiting suicide every day of my life for the last ten years until
I heard that song and I realized after all I can be my own hero.'
And that, that's an unexplainable feeling, like I've done something
with my life, ya know?" - Mariah discusses the importance of her
music.
"A lot of the time they (the media) form the idea in listeners'
minds. Calling me a 'pop diva' without listening to my work so when
I come out with an urban song it's like, 'Pop diva goes black.' I
mean, pur-lease." - Mariah from Hip Hop magazine
"Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go."
"I'm not one of those people that goes into details of my personal
life on national TV to get attention. Some things are better left
unsaid"
"A lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and
I don't think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time."
"I'm not vain, I'm insecure."
"I decided to make my own ski-wear range after I found there were no
fashion outfits for me to wear on the piste."
It's hard to be someone that people talk about and write about, you
know? They don't know me.
I prayed very hard for this to happen and it happened. I don't even
think about what I've achieved, I haven't focused on it and I wish I
had, because I really want to enjoy it, and I don't know if I am
enjoying it, because I am going through my life like a bulldozer. I
still haven't marveled at it. I don't mind being compared to
Whitney, there are people miles worse to be compared to, but if you
really listen there's a difference.
People all of a sudden just see me and hear me having hit records
and it seems to have come out of the blue. But really I have been
working towards this my whole life, and this is what I say when
people say I haven't paid my dues.
What I write is all from my imagination. Fact is, I haven't had time
to experience all that, but that doesn't mean to say that I don't
write from the heart, because I do. I put myself in other women's
shoes, I can feel their pain and joy when I think about it. It's all
the same, we're all women.
There's never been anything else in my life that inspired me at all.
It's crazy, but I've always loved music and I've always known this
was what I wanted to do. I can't remember a time when I didn't want
to be a singer.
Someone said I never paid any dues.I feel my whole life was
struggling, because we were poor. We were alone, we had nothing--no
security. I feel I have paid my dues. I've been paying my dues all
my life.
They went through some very hard times before I was born. They had
their dogs poisoned, their cars set on fire and blown up. It put a
strain on their relationship that never quit. There was always this
tension. They just fought all the time. [On her parents' divorce]
"I've always said that my father is half black and half Venezuelan
and my mother is Irish. But people don't understand. They can't
fathom that I'm African American, Venezuelan and Irish."
"And maybe there are some people out there who think a quarter
Venezuelan is not a lot... Well, I may be only one quarter, but it's
a strong quarter."
"There was a time when all I was allowed to do was go to gay clubs,
because my quote-unquote husband was so afraid of me being around
straight people."
"Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress; I liked their little ensembles....
You've got to throw Farrah Fawcett in there, too. I had the Farrah
doll. She was my little style inspiration." -on glamor influences
"I don't know why, but everybody thinks that I'm short. When they
see me for the first time, women are always surprised to be obliged
to raise their head." - on her height.
"I rarely go to bed before 5 or 6 am. I am a girl of the night. I
hate getting up before 2pm. And when I get up, I don't have
breakfast, just a slice of pizza. I'm composing my songs in bed,
because I'm getting inspired when I'm about to sink into sleep. The
night inspires me."
I'd humbly like to become an inspiration to the biracial kids, who
are the population of the new millennium. I'm everything and nothing
at the same time: white, black and Latino. If I've managed to be
accepted, the others can do it, too.
I can remember when I told myself for the first time: 'I'm going to
be rich and famous'. I was about 5 or 6. I was in my mother's car,
an old green dirty car. My sister was there too. She was humming;
she was about 15, she had just gotten married because she was
pregnant. We were on a supermarket parking lot, and I was looking at
the wealthy people through the window; I told myself 'I am going to
be a star and I'll buy all these things for us.' |
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Mariah Carey - Discography |
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1990: Mariah Carey
1991: Emotions
1993: Music Box
1994: Merry Christmas
1995: Daydream
1997: Butterfly
1999: Rainbow
2001: Glitter
2002: Charmbracelet
2005: The Emancipation of Mimi
2007: Sweet Soul Odyssey |
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Mariah Carey - Filmography |
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Tennessee (2008) .... Krystal
State Property 2 (2005) .... Professionally Dressed Woman
WiseGirls (2002) .... Raychel
"Ally McBeal" .... Candy Cushnip (1 episode, 2002)
- Playing with Matches (2002) TV Episode .... Candy Cushnip
Glitter (2001) .... Billie Frank
The Bachelor (1999) .... Ilana |
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Mariah Carey - Related Links |
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Wikipedia: Mariah Carey
YouTube: Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey at Babemania.com
Top Celebrities Sites:
The Celebrity
Cafe |
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