Mariah Carey’s extraordinary five-octive voice and stunning versatility made her the best-selling performer of the 1990s. The pop singer was born on March 27, 1970, in Huntington, N.Y., to an Irish-American mother and an African-Venezuelan father. Her mother was an opera singer who fostered her daughter’s musical talent from a very young age. Carey was performing in clubs by the age of 15, and moved to New York City the day after she graduated from high school. She attended beauty school to make ends meet, but her real focus was on writing and recording songs and shopping her demos around town.
Carey was making musical progress as a backup singer for Brenda K. Starr, but her big break came at a party when Starr handed Carey’s demo tape to Tommy Mottola, the president of Columbia Records. When Mottola listened to the tape in his limo after the party, he was so impressed by what he heard that he returned to the party and presented Carey a deal the next month.
In 1990, Carey released her debut album, Vision of Love. The record made Carey a star and sold over 6 million copies in the U.S., topped the pop, adult contemporary and R&B charts, and produced four No.1 hits including “Love Takes Time,” “I Don’t Wanna Cry” and “Someday.” She also earned Grammy awards as Best New Artist and Best Female Vocalist.
With such a successful start, Carey pushed herself even further on 1991’s Emotions and wrote all of her own songs. Carey’s streak continued with the title track topping the charts and becoming a record fifth-consecutive hit, while many of the other singles appeared in the Top 10.
In 1993, the 24-year-old Carey and 43-year-old Mottola were married in an extravagant ceremony that made headlines and reportedly cost over $500,000. Months later, she released her best-selling record to date, Music Box, which included chart-topping singles “Hero” and “Dreamlover.”
Carey followed up with a holiday album in 1994, which was unremarkable except for the smash single “All I Want for Christmas.” With 1995’s Daydream, Carey displayed a newfound confidence and scored even more No.1 hits with “Fantasy,” and “One Sweet Day,” a duet with Boyz II Men that topped the charts for a record 16 weeks.
In 1997, Carey divorced Mottola and displayed more of a hip-hop style in Butterfly. The album’s amazing success and sexy, R&B sound marked a personal and professional transition of freedom in her career. Later that year, Carey came out with #1’s, a collection of her greatest hits, and performed a duet with Whitney Houston “The Prince of Egypt (When You Believe).”
Rainbow was released in 1999, and its first smash single, “Heartbreaker,” made Carey the first artist to top the charts in each year of the 1990s. She also surpassed the Beatles to become the artist with the most cumulative weeks spent atop the Hot 100 singles chart. Meanwhile, Carey has been enjoying romantic success with Latin superstar, Luis Miguel, and sharpening her acting skills for the upcoming “All that Glitters.”
