A Force To Be Reckoned With

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

To some music lovers, Mariah Carey’s voice sounds like that of a whining dog, whimpering and squealing through four-minute ballads and three-minute peppy dance tunes. But to others, her voice is a stunning instrument.

To say that Mariah Carey has gone through some hard times is an understatement: She spent the late 1990s and the first half of this decade dodging rumors of suicide attempts and mental breakdowns. On top of that, she suffered from mediocre record sales and the seeming lack of a good fashion stylist. She giggled and rambled during live public appearances, and in an episode of MTV’s “Cribs,” she spent an hour touring her New York penthouse, changing outfits for every scene, dunking herself in a tub of bubbles, and hopping on a fitness machine in plastic high-heels. In short, she didn’t seem together. At all. But the public’s memory is fickle, and those tough times made it easy to forget that in the 1990s Ms. Carey had broken nearly every important musical record for a solo female artist.

Her self-titled debut album, released in 1990, landed four no. 1 singles, including the legendary ballad “Vision of Love.” Ms. Carey balanced balladry and adult contemporary pop with a deft hand at songwriting and a five-octave voice that she could manipulate into any mood she wanted. Her next effort, 1993’s “Music Box,” was a perfect example of the balance she could achieve.The singles “Dreamlover” and “Hero” were complete opposites: “Hero” was an indulgent, Josh Grobanesque ballad full of sentimental, heartwarming proclamations, while “Dreamlover” was a sexy come hither pop song. Until 1997, Ms. Carey kept up her success, showcasing her maturing songwriting and production skills on singles like “Fantasy” and “Always Be My Baby.”

“Butterfly,” from 1997, was Ms. Carey’s hip-hop breakthrough: Although the first single from that album, “Honey,” produced by P. Diddy, was smart and succinct, her early relationship with hip-hop was ultimately rocky. The albums “Rainbow,” “Glitter,” and “Charmbracelet” were forgettable. Ms. Carey needed help musically and personally. Her call for rescue was clouded by her continually weird antics, and the debacle of signing the biggest record contract ever — $80 million with Virgin Records — only to be dumped by the label after one release.

It was easy to think, early in this decade, that Ms. Carey wouldn’t bounce back — in fact, it was probably easier to think that the singer and her ballads were dead and gone, relegated to the video cycle on VH1 Classic, than to imagine her gathering the energy to make another comeback. But this is a singer-songwriter who was the first female artist to debut at no. 1 on the singles charts. Not even Whitney Houston did that. And she did it her own way. On the song “Fantasy” she used a Tom Tom Club sample. Now, she could have gone mainstream and used a Talking Heads sample, but instead she went obscure — and she hit gold. Why couldn’t she bounce back with pay dirt?

With last year’s “The Emancipation of Mimi,” she did just that. The songwriting skills of the hip-hop extraordinaire Jermaine Dupri helped Ms. Carey hold her own for the first time in her hip-hop career.Like other vocalists, such as Mary J. Blige, Ms. Carey used Mr. Dupri’s uncomplicated lyrics to her vocal advantage, carrying songs like “We Belong Together” to emotional arcs without going overboard. Remixes of “Shake It Off” and “It’s Like That” appeared on multiple mix tapes, further legitimizing her return.

Unsurprisingly, this comeback was accompanied by doubts about whether or not she would succeed, as well as by even more than usual criticisms of her appearance. Sure, her dresses are a little too short sometimes, but “Mimi” proved that despite such slip ups, her musical abilities are still as strong as ever.

As she swings through the East Coast on her current tour (appearing at Jones Beach during Labor Day weekend), fans can step back and appreciate the struggles that Ms. Carey went through to get to where she is now. Wearing a black bandeau on stage is probably not the best idea for an outdoor concert, but as long as she can belt out “Vision of Love” and “We Belong Together” in the same set, she is still a musical force to be reckoned with.

August 27 at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., and September 3 at the Nikon Jones Beach Theater.


The New York Sun

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