biography

The most successful female singer of the 1990's, Mariah Carey was born on March 20th, 1970. Since her mother was Irish and her father was of Venezuelan and Afro-American descent, the family was subjected to numerous hate crimes. This pressure led to her parents separating in 1972 and getting a divorce a year later.

By this point, Carey had already started to sing. She had surprised her mother, an opera singer, by singing along with her pieces when she was only two. When she was four, her mother enrolled her in voice lessons. In 1976, she made her public singing debut.

Carey's high school years were mostly focused on her singing career. At sixteen, she worked with a writer from Long Island. Her brother paid the costs for her to make a demo. Every night, she would go to Manhattan to be with her musician friends. As is tradition among musicians, they would stay up all night and sleep during the day. This, of course, made going to school very difficult.

After barely graduating from high school, she moved into a Manhattan apartment with two friends. After quitting her job at a beauty parlour she became a backup singer for Brenda K. Starr. Later that year, Starr invited Carey to a party attended by Sony Music president Tommy Mottola. Carey slipped him a copy of her demo, which he ignored until after he had left the party. Riding home in his limo, he popped the tape in and soon realised that Carey would be perfect as his label's competition to Arista record's Whitney Houston. After tracking her down, he signed her to a record contract.

After spending $800,00 to record the album, $500,000 to shoot a video, and $1 million to market them, Carey's eponymous debut album was released in 1990. The album topped the charts for 11 weeks. The first single, "Vision of Love", went to #1 on the pop charts, as did the three singles that followed. At the Grammys, she was nominated for five awards and won for Best Pop Vocal (Female) and Best New Artist. She was now established as a major star.

Carey followed the success of her debut with Emotions. The title track went to #1, making her the only artist in history to have her first five singles top the charts. By then, though, the critics were beginning to sour on her. Her excessive use of high notes led to her being dubbed "the female Michael Bolton". Many of these critics began to believe that she used studio trickery in order to achieve her legendary seven-octave range. Consequently, her next two singles did not make it to the top of the charts.

Carey silenced many of these accusations with her performance on MTV's Unplugged. The subsequent release of the performance on EP led to a large increase in her international audience. The growing size of her audience was demonstrated when her next album, 1993's Music Box, sold 25 million copies, despite some harsh criticism.

That same year, Carey married Mottola. After an elaborate wedding ceremony, they moved into a mansion the size of La Guardia Airport. Carey, who was twenty years younger than Mottola, often felt like a prisoner in her own home. Mottola would control what she wore, where she went, and with whom she would be seen. When he received offers to cast Carey in movies, he turned them down without telling her. At home, he would use the intercom system to eavesdrop on her.

Despite these personal setbacks, her career kept moving forward. Daydream (1995) featured more thoughtful lyrics and music closer to her R & B roots, a combination that won over many of her detractors. The first single, "Fantasy", debuted at #1 on both the pop and R & B charts, making her the first female artist to achieve this feat. "One Sweet Day" also debuted at the top of the charts.

By this point, her relationship with Mottola had become too stifling. She had met many celebrities her own age and realised that a strict lifestyle was not necessary to maintain her celebrity status. She divorced Mottola in 1997. After this, she became infamous for her rapidly rising skirt line and her equally low-cut tops.

Mottola was wise enough to let Carey continue to record for his label. He even let her spend huge amounts of money on the video for "Honey", the leadoff single for 1997's butterfly. It is not known if he realised that the opening of the video, in which Carey is held prisoner in a mansion, was a stab at him. As a businessman, any concerns he had were erased when the single, like so many of Carey's previous singles, debuted at the top of the charts. This was Carey's twelfth chart-topping single, the most by any solo female singer in the rock era. In the history of the Billboard Hot 100, only six singles had debuted at #1. Three of them were Carey's.

Now living in the eastside of Manhattan, Mariah Carey is the reigning queen of pop music. She has had so many chart-topping singles that she was able to fill an entire album with them. This album is called, appropriately enough, #1's. She has also recently collaborated with her 'arch-rival' Whitney Houston on the Prince of Egypt soundtrack. With more than 90 million albums sold world-wide, Mariah Carey is now the best-selling female artist of the 1990s.