Mariah Carey (born in New York in 1970 of mixed-race parents)
is an astonishing vocalist, equipped
with a five-octave range
and a register that competes with Whitney Houston's. Her melisma singing on
the high notes became soon legendary.
Unfortunately, she has
wasted her career singing lame soul-pop ballads.
Thanks to her artistic prostitution,
Mariah Carey was the best-selling female performer of the 1990s.
Coached by her mother (an opera singer),
Carey wrote her first songs with keyboardist Ben Margulies, while
working as a waitress and janitor.
She struck gold after she was signed (and romanced) by
Columbia executive Tommy Mottola at a party.
Her debut album, Mariah Carey (Columbia, 1990), spawned five hits:
Vision Of Love,
There's Got to Be a Better Way,
Love Takes Time,
the ballad that established her as one of the greatest interpreters of her
time,
the Madonna-inspired dance of
Someday and the heartbreaking ballad I Don't Wanna Cry.
The album will sell six million copies in ten years.
While vastle inferior, Emotions (Columbia, 1991) also sold millions.
When the (loud, floor-shaking) title-track reached number one again, Carey became the first artist
to have her first five singles all make it to the top of the charts.
The album also contains Can't Let Go and Make It Happen.
In 1993 Carey wed Mottola (with a half-a-million-dollar ceremony)
and released Music Box (Columbia, 1993), that
will go on to become her all-time best-selling album (23 million copies in
eight years).
The upbeat, whispered jingle of Dreamlover and
the solemn, orchestral, piano-driven hymn of
Hero were the new hits, followed by
All I Want for Christmas Is You (1994).
As usual, each song is carefully packaged and masterly executed.
However,
Anytime You Need a Friend (1994) was better remixed by
C&C Music Factory as a ten-minute club dance.
Fantasy, from Daydream (Columbia, 1995),
shaken by loud hip-hop beats and focused on the aerial battle of the many
voices, debuted at number one, relying very little on arrangement
(clapping, a blues guitar, a funky keyboard).
One Sweet Day, a slow, emphatic duet with Boyz II Men, did even better,
staying at the top of the charts for an unprecedented 16 weeks.
Each album was carefully crafted by a fleet of producers
for maximum consumption but yielded little in artistic terms.
Always Be My Baby is a typical Carey ballad, enhanced by a colorful
counterpoint of female voices.
Underneath the Stars and Melt Away further display the artful
exploitation of emotions on the album.
After separating from Mottola, Carey abandoned her image of mainstream
balladeers and suddenly presented a "bad girl" aspect of her persona with
Butterfly (Columbia, 1997), a collection steeped in hip hop and
rhythm and blues:
the futuristic, syncopated Honey,
the super-sweet and super-romantic Whenever You Call,
the delicate, tender whisper of My All.
#1's collects her 13 number-one singles
as well as The Prince of Egypt, a duet with the second
most successful female singer of the decade, Whitney Houston.
Carey divorced from Mottola in 1998 but initially the fact seemed to make
little difference.
The hit of the year was
The Roof (Back in Time), which sampled Mobb Deep's Shook Ones Part II.
Heartbreaker, from Rainbow (Columbia, 1999), broke the Beatles'
record for total weeks that an artist has been at number one on the
Billboard charts (but it is nothing more than a reworking of Fantasy).
I Still Believe, a relatively trivial romantic ballad, was the
second hit.
The real highlights of the album, though, are
Bliss, six minutes of the hottest soul she has ever recorded, and
Crybaby, her best hip-hop imitation yet.
Carey was rarely credited for her own success, but she
actually composed 13 of her 14 chart-topping hits.
Carey topped the charts in each year of the 1990s.
At 29, Mariah Carey had already sold over 100 million albums.
Neither Presley nor the Beatles could claim anything close to her records.
She already had a portfolio containing some of the most popular songs of the decade:
Vision Of Love (1990),
Emotions (1991),
Dreamlover (1993),
Hero (1993)
All I Want for Christmas Is You (1994),
Fantasy (1995),
One Sweet Day (1995),
Always Be My Baby (1995),
Honey (1997),
Heartbreaker (1999).
In 2000, Thank God I Found You and Can't Take That Away
continued the string of hits, but Glitter (EMI, 2001) flopped, her
first album not to sell one million copies. She suffered a nervous breakdown
and was hospitalized for a while. In january 2002 her recording company
canceled her contract, one of the biggest in history.
Charmbracelet (2002) sounded like a collection of leftovers.
The Emancipation Of Mimi (2005) was not as catchy as usual, her
voice was somewhat shaky, its single It's Like That was mediocre and
Shake It Off did little with Jermaine Dupri's inventive beat,
but the torch ballad We Belong Together and
Don't Forget About Us gained her more respectability and reached the top
of the charts, allowing her to match
Elvis Presley's record of 17 number-one singles.
It sold more than four million copies in 2005 alone (the second best-selling album of the year).
All in all, it marked a commercial comeback.
The Neptunes produced Say Somethin’ (2006) in the synth-pop style of the 1980s.
E=MC2 (2008), an album heavy on hip-hop rhythms, reached again the top of the charts (Touch My Body the hit).
Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel (2009), composed by
Terius Nash (The-Dream) and Christopher Stewart (Tricky),
opted instead for the format of the love ballad, and stood as a sort of adult
counterpart to the teenage spirit of its predecessor (Obsessed would become a meme on the Internet ten years later).
#Beautiful (2013) is unusually rocking and distorted.
Me I Am Mariah the Elusive Chanteuse (2014) buried her voice in
sound effects,
and Caution (2018) buried her voice in beats (A No-No repurposes
Lil'Kim's Crush on You).
Both repeated fashionable cliches hoping that her songs could resonated with the new generation, but the process ended up obscuring her vocal talent and
further sabotaged it with mediocre material.
|
(Translation by/ Tradotto da
Antonio DiFrancesco )
Mariah Carey (nata a New York nel 1970 da genitori di differente colore
della pelle) e` una straordinaria cantante, dotata di un repertorio di
sette ottave e di un registro paragonabile a quello di Whitney Houston.
Il suo cantato melodioso sulle note alte e` presto divenuto
leggendario. Purtroppo, ha sprecato la sua carriera cantando insulse
ballate pop-soul.Grazie alla sua "prostituzione artistica", Mariah Carey
e` stata l'artista solista femminile che ha venduto piu` copie negli
anni '90.
Istruita dalla propria madre (una cantante d'opera), la Carey scrisse le
sue prime canzoni con il pianista Ben Margulies, mentre lavorava come
cameriera e portinaia. Trovo` l'oro dopo essersi legata (non solo
contrattualmente) all'executive della Columbia Tommy Mottola in una
festa.
Il suo album di debutto, Mariah Carey (Columbia, 1990), produsse cinque
hits da classifica: Vision Of Love, There's Got To Be A Better Way, Love
Takes Time, la ballata che la consacro` come una delle piu` grandi
interpreti del suo tempo, il balletto alla Madonna di Someday e la
commovente ballata I Don't Wanna Cry. L'album vender=E0 in dieci anni
sei milioni di copie.
Quantunque nettamente inferiore, anche Emotions (Columbia, 1991)
vendette milioni di copie. Quando la (rumorosa e scuotente) title-track
raggiunse ancora una volta il numero uno, la Carey divenne il primo
artista a raggiungere la cime delle classifiche con ognuno dei suoi
primi cinque singoli. L'album contiene inoltre Can't Let Go e Make It
Happen.
Nel 1993 la Carey sposo` Mottola (con una ceremonia da mezzo milione di
dollari) e pubblico` Music Box (Columbia, 1993), che sarebbe diventato
il suo album di maggior successo in termini di copie vendute. La lieta,
sussurrata cantilena di Dreamlover e il solenne inno orchestrale guidato
dal pianoforte di Hero furono le nuove hit-singles, seguite da All I
Want For Christmas Is You. Come al solito, ogni canzone e`
accuratamente confezionata e magistralmente eseguita.
Fantasy, dall'album Daydream (Columbia, 1995), agitata da rumorosi ritmi
hip-hop e focalizzata sulla contrapposizione aerea di varie voci,
esord=EC al numero uno, contando ben poco sull'arrangiamento (battito di
mani, una chitarra blues, una tastiera funky). One Sweet Day, un lento
ed enfatico duetto con i Boyz II Men, fece anche meglio, rimanendo in
cima alle classifiche per un periodo record di 16 settimane. Ogni album
era accuratamente congegnato per il massimo consumo possibile da una
frotta di produttori, ma trasmetteva ben poco in termini artistici.
Always Be My Baby e` una tipica ballata di Mariah, innalzata da
uncolorato contrappunto di voci femminili.
Dopo essersi separata da Mottola, Mariah Carey abbandono` la sua
immagine di esecutrice di tradizionali ballate, presentandosi
improvvisamente con un aspetto da "ragazza cattiva" in Butterfly
(Columbia, 1997), un disco immerso nell'hip-hop e nel rythm and blues;
la futuristica e sincopata Honey, la sdolcinatissima e romanticissima
Whenever You Call, il delicato e tenero bisbiglio di My All.
#1's raccoglie i suoi 13 singoli da numero uno piu` When You Believe
(che fece parte della colonna sonora del film animato Il Principe
d'Egitto), un duetto con la seconda cantante femmina di maggior successo
del decennio, Whitney Houston.
Heartbreaker, dall'album Rainbow (Columbia, 1999), batte` il record,
detenuto dai Beatles, per il totale di settimane in cui un artista sia
stato al numero uno delle classifiche di Billboard (pur non essendo
altro che un rifacimento di Fantasy). I Still Believe, una ballata
romantica piuttosto insignificante, fu il secondo singolo. I veri centri
del disco, comunque, sono Bliss, sei minuti del piu` caldo soul che mai
sia stato registrato, e Crybaby, per adesso la sua migliore
interpretazione hip-hop. Nel 2000, Thank God I Found You e Can't Take
That Away continuarono la serie dei suoi singoli.
Mariah Carey viene raramente accreditata per il suo successo, ma ha
effettivamente composto 13 delle sue 14 canzoni al numero uno delle
charts.
Mariah Carey e` arrivata al primo posto delle classifiche in ogni
annata degli anni Novanta. A 29 anni, ha gi=E0 venduto piu` di 100
milioni di copie. N=E9 Elvis Presley n=E9 i Beatles si avvicinano ai
suoi record di vendita.
|