|
|||
|
|||
THE BEST |
|||
 |
 |
 |
|
Mariah Carey was
born on March 27, 1970 in Long Island, NY. Her mother,
Patricia Carey, is an opera-singer and at the time when
she met Mariah’s father, she was singing at the New
York City Opera. Alfred Roy Carey, Mariah’s father,
was an aeronautical engineer. He passed away on July 4,
2002. Mariah’s parents divorced when she was
three years old. She has one brother (Morgan) and one
sister (Alison). Mariah has started singing before
she started talking. At the age of three, she sang
opera-arias along with her mother – in Italian. By
the time she was six, she wrote poetry (one of her poems
was called “My World”) and in school she
started writing songs as well. One day after graduating
from High School, Mariah moved to Manhattan, where she
struggled for about two years doing different jobs
daytime, while recording songs in a studio for a
demo-tape during the nights, and also singing as a backup
singer for different artists. One of those artists was
Brenda K. Starr, who hired Mariah as her backup singer
and also introduced Mariah to a few Record Company
Executives. One of them was Thomas Mottola, who, after
hearing Mariah’s demo-tape, immediately signed a
recording contract with her. When Mariah released her debut album
Mariah Carey in 1990, she launched an unbroken string of
successes unparalleled in music history. The album has sold more than 12
million albums worldwide and yielded a record-setting
four consecutive #1 singles on Billboard Top Pop Singles
chart: “Vision of Love”, “Love Takes
Time”, “Someday” and “I Don’t
Wanna Cry”. That year, she also won two Grammys,
including “Best New Artist”, 6 Billboard Awards
(!) – And thus began the journey of what will
prove to be one of the most legendary and prolific
careers in music history… Mariah’s second album Emotions,
generated her fifth consecutive #1 single. In only
two-year period, Mariah was already on Top Ten List of
All-Time Achievers of Most Consecutive #1 hits. The
Emotions project also earned Mariah two more Grammy
nominations as well as two more American Music Awards and
two Billboard Awards. Then in March 1992, Mariah assured
her position as one of the best live performers in music
history, when she appeared on MTVīs Unplugged, a program
that does not allow an artist to bring in any electronic
wizardy to “enhance” their talent. Mariah not
only demonstrated she didn’t need a bit of
“enhancing”, but she blew the in-studio and
television audience away with her cover of the Jackson
5īs “I’ll Be There”. That song went on to
become her sixth #1 single. Then her MTV Unplugged live
recording has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide,
and the video of the program has sold over a
quarter-million copies. In 1993, Mariah once again blew the
record charts away with the release of her next album,
Music Box, which has sold more than 24 (!) million copies
worldwide, and generated her seventh and eight #1
singles, “Dreamlover” and “Hero”.
Then in 1994 she followed the Music Box project with a
holiday album, Merry Christmas that sold more than eight
million copies worldwide, within weeks after its release.
The “All I Want For Christmas” single from this
album, which Mariah wrote, has become one of the most
popular holiday songs ever. Mariah continued to show that she
was a music legend in the making, when in 1995 she
released her next album Daydream. Not only did it debut
at #1 on the Billboard albums chart, but also the album
has been certified nine times platinum by the RIAA.
Daydream also generated her ninth, tenth and eleventh (!)
consecutive #1 singles: “Fantasy”, “Always
Be My Baby” and “One Sweet Day”, her duet
with Boyz II Men that also holds the record for the
longest-running single at #1. With Daydream, Mariah also
became the first female artist in history to have three
albums that sold in excess of eight million copies. Then with the release of her next
album in 1997, Butterfly, Mariah’s vocal gift,
extraordinarysongwriting and production savvy, decimated
the record charts once again. Not only has the album thus
far been certified triple platinum by RIAA, but the album
generated her twelfth and thirteenth #1 singles:
“Honey” and “My All”. Butterfly and her previous albums
were the motivation for releasing Mariah’s #1īs
album, which includes 13 of her #1 singles. But
Mariah’s inspiration for doing the project in the
first place, were the fans, to whom she feels graciously
indebted for her success. The release of Mariah’s ninth
album, Rainbow, earned Mariah two more #1 singles:
“Heartbreaker” and “Thank God I Found
You”. When “Heartbreaker” entered its
second week at #1, it marked the 60th
week Mariah has been in the top spot on the charts,
breaking the long-standing 59-week record established by
the Beatles! Thus Rainbow has been certified
triple-platinum by the RIAA. Mariah entered the new millennium
having sold more than 128 million records worldwide and
having established herself as the most popular and
successful artist ever! Her Rainbow World Tour was an
extraordinary successful one. While many artists played
their tours to half-empty houses at that time,
Mariah’s was a whole different. In fact, her shows
sold out in matter of days! The Tour featured many of
Mariah’s hits, which defined the musical soundtrack
of our time from 1990īs “Vision Of Love”
through the 2000īs “Thank God I Found You”. Despite the phenomenal success of
the Rainbow album and the worldtour, Mariah didn’t
have the support of her record company Columbia / Sony
anymore. She was very upset about this matter, but she
said, “I’m not willing to give up.” The year 2001 was bittersweet.
Mariah was finally fulfilling her long-time dream of a
big screen career, working on the project
“Glitter”, and she was finally free from Sony.
In April, Mariah signed a new, record-breaking recording
contract with Virgin, but soon the company was showing a
lack of support for her, not just as an artist, but also
as a human. The months April, May, June and July 2001
were extremely exhausting for Mariah. While she was
completing her first soundtrack and the movie
“Glitter”, (which was unfortunately produced by
Columbia Pictures, the filmmaking arm of Sony Music) she
was filming – at the same time - the independent
movie called “Wise Girls”, together with the
Oscar winning actress Mira Sorvino. After working 20 hours a day for a
long period of time, not eating and sleeping, but giving
it all to the projects she was involved in, Mariah
suffered an emotional and physical collapse in July 2001.
But no one at Virgin Records or her management understood
that she had to meet the needs that every one of us have!
And as if the whole drama overworking her was not enough,
Mariah had to go through the greatest public humiliation
process in the showbiz history. While she took only a few
weeks off for recovering and was back on her feet
glittering by the time Glitter was released, the press
kept going on. They created countless ridiculous stories
about her collapse. (If she ever sued them all, she would
have become twice as rich as Bill Gates) Glitter soundtrack was released on
September 11 2001. But, as we all know, this day
wasn’t the best one for releasing a new CD. The
world has seen the most devastating terror ever. Few days
later, Glitter movie was released. It is not difficult to
imagine that the public rather stayed at home these days.
Plus, the production company took Glitter off the lists
of the great number of movie theaters and so it took
Glitter every chance to reach the top ten. Many of the
fans (like us!) didn’t get the chance to see the
movie in the theater. Despite of it all, Glitter was a success. The CD has sold millions of copies (despite the negativity spread in the press) and it reached the top of the Soundtrack Charts on the Billboard. The lead single, Loverboy, reached #2 on the Hot 100 Billboard charts and it also won the Billboard Award for the "Top R&B/hip-hop single - sales". There are also countless fans out
there who love the movie and the soundtrack and even
colleagues like Eddie Griffin and Pink spoke very well of
the movie. Despite of all the humiliation and
drama that happened last year, Mariah has looked once
again inside herself and found a strength to prove that
she indeed is too good, not to be true. In January 2002, the movie
“Wise Girls” brought Mariah outstanding reviews
for her role as the tough waitress in a restaurant held
by the mafia. Mariah has finally got the deserved
recognition for her acting talent! In February 2002, Mariah sang the
national anthem at the Superbowl. Her performance,
which was reported to have been seen by about 800 million
spectators, was the most brilliant that the world has
ever heard! Mariah was spectacular, once again. The split with Virgin was the best
thing that could have happened to Mariah at this point.
In the early 2002, she was finally free again and so she
focused on her next big goal. She started working on her
new album. She wrote, recorded and co-produced 21 songs
within a few months! While working on the album, she
signed a new recording contract with the Universal Group
and has founded her own label there, MonarC (the name of
the butterfly shown on the cover of the album). In
autumn, she was ready for a worldwide promotional tour. Charmbracelet, Mariahīs highly
anticipated album, was released on December 3, 2002 and
it immediately stormed the charts! The album debuted at
#1 in Japan and at #3 on the Billboard chart, selling
more than 240.000 copies alone in the USA in its first
week! This was in fact Mariah’s second best selling
opening week of her career (only topped by Rainbow in
1999)! The first single from Charmbracelet, the
inspirational ballad “Through The Rain”, became
a big hit in several countries where it reached the top 5
(England, Japan, Brazil...) and its video became #1 on
TRL (MTV US), which is Mariah’s biggest success ever
on this chart. Carey on,
Mariah! |
|||
|
|||
The Toronto Sun Review
of Mariah’s first concert in Canada – April 19,
2000 It’s
been said in the past that pop music’s uber-diva
Mariah Carey doesn’t like to tour due to stage
nerves. But that certainly wasn’t the case last
night at the Air Canada Centre where the seven-octave
singer finally made her Toronto performing debut with a
relaxed and rambling In
fact, it was Carey’s first-ever
Canadian concert despite a staggeringly
successful decade of No. 1 hits too numerous to mention
and album sales of 125 million worldwide. The sold-out
crowd of 17,000 screaming, sign-waving fans were
obviously jazzed about finally getting to see her in a
live setting, which - incidentally – was being taped
for an upcoming TV special.
Also adding to the drama was the fact that the
30-year-old performer had earlier postponed her April 7
concert here due to a case of food poisoning and
dehydration. Bad raw oysters in Atlanta were to blame. “What’s
up Toronto? I finally made it,” said Carey,
initially dressed in a skimpy, silver halter top,
hip-hugging jeans and silver high-heeled sandals, before
making enough costume changes to make even Cher jealous. Carey’s
entrance was preceded by a way-too-long video skit in
which she fought off her “evil twin” - the
black-haired Bianca - while several stars, ranging from
Aretha Franklin to Barney, made testimonials about their
supposed rivalry. Still,
being silly - even cheesy at times - seemed to be a high
priority for the child-like Carey, who staged everything
from a WWF -like boxing match during her recent hit Heartbreaker
to a beauty contest (complete with a
sash, tiara and red roses) during the older favourite, Dream
Trust
me, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of
play-acting. Carey also stopped repeatedly to sip tea,
have her face attended to by makeup artist
“Chris,” who appeared in drag during the beauty
contest skit, and was downright chatty and indulgent with
fans. In
fact, she invited several concert-goers - one carrying a
sign that said: “No more oysters! ”I’m
kind of sad,”she said. “I’ve gone through
a lot of emotions ‘cause you know I don’t tour
a lot.” The good news for local Carey-lovers is that
the singer is scheduled to begin filming the In
the meantime, they’ll have memories of her
often-thrilling voice as she hit the high notes Some
audience members may have something even more tangible,
given Carey threw |
|||
"THE LEGEND" 