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Mariah Carey B and pop singer, songwriter, record producer and occasional actress of the 1990s and 2000s. Making her debut in 1990, she became the most successful and best-selling artist of the coming decade according to In 2000, the World Music Awards show named her the best-selling female recording artist of all time, but she has fewer critical accomplishments than commercial.

Possessing a five-octave vocal range, Carey has been noted for her frequent use of melisma in her singing and her capabilities in the whistle register. She released fifteen U.S. number-one hits while signed to Columbia Records, formerly run by then-husband Tommy Mottola, and several of them broke chart records. By the turn of the millennium Carey's popularity with critics and the public had entered decline, and she was dropped from her new record label following a highly-publicised physical breakdown and an unsuccessful foray into film. In 2005, Carey returned to the forefront of popular music with the success of her ninth studio album, and became the second solo recording artist in history to place seventeen singles at number one on the U.S. charts and the first artist to receive sixteen World Music Awards.sup

Carey was born in Huntington, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia Hickey, a former opera singer and voice coach of Irish American Roman Catholic extraction, and Alfred Roy Carey (né Núñez), an aeronautical engineer of mixed African American and Hispanic-Venezuelan descent. She was named after the song "And They Call the Wind Maria", from the musical . Carey's siblings include her older sister Alison, and her older brother Morgan. As a multiracial family, the Carey household was met with racial slurs, hostility, and sometimes violence, causing the family to move frequently around the New York area. The strain on the family led to the divorce of Carey's parents when she was three years old. Carey had little contact with her father, and her mother worked several jobs to support the family.

Spending much of her time at home alone, Carey turned to music as an outlet. She began singing at the age of four, and first performed in public at the age of six. She began writing songs while in grade school, and her mother and the members of her opera company were impressed with her talents when Carey hit a cue note that her mother had missed. Carey attended and graduated from Oldfield Middle School and Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, although she was frequently absent due to efforts to break into the music business. After moving to New York City and completing five hundred hours of beauty school, she eventually landed a role as a backup singer for Brenda K. Starr.

In 1988, Carey met Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola at a party, where Starr gave him a demo tape. Mottola played the tape while leaving the party and was very impressed by what he heard. He returned to the party to find Carey, but she had already left. Nevertheless, Mottola tracked her down and signed her to a recording contract. This -like story became part of the standard publicity surrounding Carey's entrance into the industry.

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Carey's professional music career began with the release of her eponymous debut album, , in 1990. Carey co-wrote all of the compositions on the album with songwriter-producers such as Ric Wake and Rhett Lawrence, and would continue to co-write nearly all of her material for the rest of her career. The album ascended to number one on the Billboard 200 a year after its release, where it remained for eleven weeks. It produced four number-one singles, making Carey a star in the United States. Elsewhere, however, the album's success was limited. In 1991, Carey won her first two Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her debut single "Vision of Love".

, Carey's second album, was released in the fall of 1991 to critical and commercial success. Britain's B...[it] sashays with the customary elegance of a multi-million dollar production, and Carey's pipes are...in fine fettle".sup Its first single, the title track "Emotions", gave Carey the distinction of being the only recording act in history to have their first five singles reach number-one on the U.S. Hot 100 chart,sup but the album's follow-up singles failed to maintain this feat. Carey had been lobbying for the ability to produce her own songs, and beginning with , would co-produce most of her material. She would also begin writing and producing for other artists, such as Penny Ford and Daryl Hall, within the coming year.

Although she had fulfilled several concert dates to support her debut album, Carey had not embarked on any major public tours. Her first widely-seen concert appearance was on the television show in May 1992, and her performance proved that her vocal abilities were not, as some had previously speculated, simulated using studio techniques. In addition to acoustic versions of some of her earlier songs, Carey premiered a cover of The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" on the special with back-up singer Trey Lorenz. By popular demand, the duet was released as a single and its success led the concert performance to be made into the EP, called "the strongest, most genuinely musical record she has ever made...Did this live performance help her take her first steps toward growing up?".sup

Carey, then 23, and Tommy Mottola, 43, had become romantically involved, and in June 1993 they were married in an Episcopalian ceremony in Manhattan. Her third studio album, , was released later that year, and became her most successful album worldwide. The album yielded several of what many consider to be her signature songs such as "Dreamlover", "Hero" and "Without You", the lattermost becoming her first UK number one single. Carey's attempt at a mellower work than her previous efforts was met with generally positive reviews, with magazine proclaiming it as "heart-piercing...easily the most elemental of Carey's releases, her vocal eurythmics in natural sync with the songs".sup said Carey "blended into the background and let the tracks guide her, instead of pushing and exploding through them",sup 's Stephen Holden criticised "Carey's lyrics, which are made up entirely of pop and soul clichés".sup "Carey and Boyz II Men recording "One Sweet Day" (1995), one of Carey's most successful singles."

Following a hit duet with Luther Vandross of Diana Ross' "Endless Love", Carey released the holiday album in late 1994. In addition to covers of traditional Christmas songs, it contained a very successful original holiday song, "All I Want for Christmas Is You". The single became her first number-one hit in Japan and was described as "a well-crafted Phil Spector tribute" by Roch Parisien, who dismissed The album was popular with the public, becoming one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time.

In 1995 Carey released B and hip hop music influences. It became her largest-selling LP in the U.S., and its singles achieved similar success: "Fantasy" became only the second single to debut at number-one in the U.S. and "One Sweet Day" (a duet with Boyz II Men) spent a still-record sixteen weeks at number one in the U.S. generated career-best reviews for Carey and was named one of 1995's best albums by publications such as the , who wrote that its "best cuts bring pop candy-making to a new peak of textural refinement" and noted that Carey's songwriting "has taken a leap forward, becoming more relaxed, sexier and less reliant on thudding cliches".sup Carey was the recipient of several awards following the success of the album and received six Grammy nominations, but lost in all categories.

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Carey and Mottola separated in 1997. Although she had often projected the image of a happy marriage to the public, in reality she had felt emotionally and psychologically abused by Mottola, whom she often described as controlling. Their divorce became final the following year.

"The lyrics and music video for "Honey" (1997) presented a more overtly sexual image of Carey than had been previously seen." The lyrics and music video for "Honey" (1997) presented a more overtly sexual image of Carey than had been previously seen.hip hop direction, while the lyrics and music video for lead single "Honey" presented a more overtly sexual image of Carey than had been previously seen. The album's third U.S. single, "My All" was her thirteenth number-one, an unprecedented feat for a female artist. J.R. Reynolds said "pushes the envelope", a move that he thought "may prove disconcerting to more conservative fans", but Reynolds still praised the album as "a welcome change".sup ] is easily the most personal, confessional-sounding record she's ever done...Carey-bashing just might become a thing of the past".sup 1997 also marked the year that Carey became a major songwriter and producer for other artists, contributing to the debut albums of Allure, 7 Mile and Blaque. She also wrote songs for the soundtracks to the films . Towards the turn of the millennium Carey became a prominent figure in hip hop music, and collaborated with both new and established rappers such as Jay-Z.

During 1998, Carey had a romance with New York Yankees baseball player Derek Jeter, who was also biracial. She would state later that while the timing was not right for their relationship, it did teach her that multiracial families could function well.sup , a collection of her U.S. number-one singles up to that point. Included amongst the new songs recorded for the album was "When You Believe", a duet with Whitney Houston recorded for the soundtrack to magazine labelled Carey "a purveyor of saccharine bilge like 'Hero', whose message seems wholesome enough: that if you vacate your mind of all intelligent thought, flutter your eyelashes and wish hard, sweet babies and honey will follow".sup benefit concert program with singers such as Aretha Franklin and Shania Twain, though Carey's alleged prima donna behavior had already led many to consider her a diva.sup hip hop-oriented songs; Carey intended them to express her feelings about her divorce two years previously. Both "Heartbreaker" and "Thank God I Found You" — the former featuring Jay-Z, the latter featuring Joe and boyband 98 Degrees — reached number one in the U.S. However, despite several other collaborations with artists such as Usher and Snoop Dogg, became her lowest-selling LP up to that point. Reviews were not as favourable as those of her previous releases, with Although the recipient of several awards in recognition of her decade-spanning career such as Billboard's Artist of the Decade Award and the World Music Award for the world's Best-Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, a further sign of decline appeared when the double A-side "Crybaby") became her first single to peak outside of the U.S. top twenty. Via her website, Carey publicly accused Sony of mishandling the release of the single.

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Following a successful decade at Columbia Records, Carey finally ended her contract and signed a five-album deal with EMI's Virgin Records worth a reported US$80 million. Just a few months later in July 2001, it was widely reported that Carey had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She had left voicemail messages on her website (which were quickly removed) to her fans complaining of being overworked, and her relationship with Luis Miguel was ending. Carey made a notorious appearance on MTV's , where she handed out popsicles to the teen-aged audience and began what was later described by some as a "strip tease".sup By the month's end Carey had checked into a psychiatric hospital, and her publicist announced that she would be taking a break from public appearances.sup , was panned by most critics upon its release and became a box office failure (see below). Its soundtrack album , released by Virgin, generated her worst showing to date on the U.S. charts. Kevin C. Johnson of the dismissed the album as "an absolute mess that'll go down as an annoying blemish on a career that, while not always critically heralded, was at least nearly consistently successful",sup thought: "After years of trading her signature flourishes for a radio-ready purr, [Carey]'s left with almost no presence at all".sup but the album's follow-up singles all failed to chart.

Shortly after the disastrous release of . In early 2002, Virgin decided to drop Carey from their roster and they bought out her contract for $28 million, as an addition to the $21 million paid the previous year when signing, giving her another round of bad publicity. Later that year, she signed a three-album contract with Island Records' Def Jam. To add further to Carey's emotional burdens, her father died of cancer.

Following a well-received supporting role in the independent film sold poorly, and the quality of Carey's vocals, which had previously been perceived as her strong point, came under severe criticism. The declared the album as "the worst of her career, revealing a voice no longer capable of either gravity-defying gymnastics or soft coos",sup Singles such as "Through the Rain" failed both on the charts and with pop radio, whose playlists had become less open to maturing "diva" stylists such as Carey, Whitney Houston and Céline Dion.sup

"I Know What You Want", Carey's 2003 duet with Busta Rhymes recorded for his eighth album, fared considerably better and reached the top five in the U.S. Columbia later included it on the remix collection , which failed to find an audience and became Carey's lowest-selling album. That year, she was awarded the "Diamond Award" by the World Music Awards show in honour of selling over 150 million albums worldwide.sup She was featured on rapper Jadakiss' single "U Make Me Wanna" in 2004, which reached the top ten of Billboard's R""Don't Forget About Us" (2005) has tied Carey with Elvis Presley for the most U.S. number-one singles by a solo recording artist." "Don't Forget About Us" (2005) has tied Carey with Elvis Presley for the most U.S. number-one singles by a solo recording artist., was released in 2005. It was advertised as "The Return of the Voice", though Carey maintained that the voice had always been there.sup magazine wrote: "whatever the songs lack, they make up for in restraint – brevity keeps you wanting more".sup defined it as "a tough cookie of an album" and "cool, focused and urban...the first Mariah Carey tunes in years I wouldn't have to be paid to listen to again".sup It became the year's best-selling album in the U.S. (the first by a female solo artist to do so since 1996)sup B Album. Its second single, "We Belong Together," became the biggest hit of 2005 and Carey's career: it topped the U.S. charts for fourteen weeks, reached number one in several other countries, was honored as the world's most-played single of the year at the World Music Awards and received two Grammys. "Don't Forget About Us" became Carey's seventeenth number-one in the U.S., tying her with Elvis Presley for the most number-ones by a solo artist according to magazine's revised methodology (their own statician, however, credits Presley with an eighteenth).sup By this count Carey is behind only the Beatles, who are currently credited with twenty number-one singles.

Producer Jermaine Dupri, Carey's frequent collaborator, reported in early 2006 that he had arranged for her to record a duet with fellow R

Carey made her film debut as an opera singer and one of the former girlfriends of Jimmie (Chris O'Donnell) in (1999), a romantic comedy starring O'Donnell and Renée Zellweger. Critical response to Carey's cameo appearance was lukewarm: Paul Tatara from CNN derisively said Carey's casting as a talentless diva was "letter-perfect", and Tony Lee simply stated "no, she can't act".

Carey's first starring role was in , a 2001 film that had been in development as a vehicle for Carey since 1997. In it she played Billie Frank, a struggling singer and songwriter who breaks into the music industry after she meets DJ Julian Dice (Max Beesley). Reviews were scathing; while Roger Ebert gave mild praise for Carey's performance, saying, "Her acting ranges from dutiful flirtatiousness to intense sincerity", most other critics panned it: Stephanie Zacharek called Carey "numbingly bland" in her role, and Michael Atkinson observed, "when she tries for an emotion—any emotion—she looks as if she's lost her car keys". was a box office failure, and Carey earned a Razzie Award for her role. She has since referred to the film as "a diva moment".sup

Carey next appeared co-starring with Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters as a tough-talking waitress in the independent film , which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002. Critics who saw the film lauded Carey for her efforts: Kirk Honeycutt of the will be a forgotten memory for the singer once people warm up to Raychel", and Roger Freidman, referring to her as "a Thelma Ritter for the new millennium", said "her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs". , about an unknown but talented boxer who is recruited by a determined female boxing manager. However, the project later fell into development hell, while was not given a theatrical release and went straight-to-cable in the United States.

Carey became one of several musicians to make cameo appearances in the independently-produced Damon Dash films (2005). Her small-screen work has been more limited: she played a legal client of the title character in

Carey is credited as having a five-octave vocal range; she can cover all the notes from the alto range leading to those of a coloratura soprano. [1] Her vocal trademark is her ability to sing in the whistle register. She has often been incorrectly credited as having a six or seven-octave vocal range. It has been suggested that Carey's publicists falsely claimed this at the start of her career, [2] although it may also be a misstatement of the fact that Carey frequently accesses the notes situated in the seventh octave.

Carey's voice has come under minor scrutiny from some critics who believe that she does not effectively communicate the message of her songs. , wrote "Carey has a remarkable vocal gift, but to date, unfortunately, her singing has been far more impressive than expressive...at full speed her range is so superhuman that each excessive note erodes the believability of the lyric she is singing" [3], while others have referred to her high notes as "dog whistles". [4] [5] In comparison, criticisms were levelled at what Carey herself described as "breathy" vocals in some of her later songs on albums such as . Said Carey, "Some people are of the opinion that if you have a big voice you should use it all the time...[but] I don't want to hear someone scream at me all the time".sup

Carey's voice, which is a continual subject of both positive and negative debate, was voted as the greatest voice in music in MTV and 's countdown of "The 22 Greatest Voices in Music", and is believed to have influenced singers such as Christina Aguilera and Kelly Clarkson. In 's poll of the "100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists", she placed second behind Aguilera. [6]

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Carey is a philanthropist who has donated both time and millions of dollars to organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the National Adoption Center, VH1's Save the Music Foundation, and the Fresh Air Fund among many others. Carey is well-known nationally for her work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in granting the wishes of the terminally ill Caleb Boulter, who called her "a very real person who overflows with compassion and love for others". As part of her involvement with the Fresh Air Fund, she is the co-founder of a camp located in Fishkill, New York that enables inner-city youth to embrace the arts, be introduced to career opportunities, and build self-esteem. The camp was named Camp Mariah in honour of Carey's work with the Fresh Air Fund, and she received a Congressional Award titled the Horizon Award for her charity work on behalf of children.

Carey performed as part of the nationally televised fundraiser in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and in December 2001 she performed before U.S. peacekeeping troops in Kosovo.

She hosted the CBS television special , which documented real-life stories of adopted children and foster families. In July 2005, Carey performed for Live 8 at the Live 8 concert, London with the African Children's Choir. She was also a participant in the telethon following Hurricane Katrina's damage to the U.S. Gulf Coast later that year.

Carey, who considered writing her autobiography with David Ritz, has instead chosen to fictionalize her life story and adapt it into a series of illustrated children's books titled , about an orphaned young girl who is biracial. Also forthcoming is a clothing and accessories line known as Automatic Princess, as well as a lingerie line, Kiss Kiss, which will be available for women in all sizes. Carey's fashion sense has itself often been criticized for exposing too much of her, or just being poorly put together. [7]

a name="Discography" The following singles reached number one in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Carey Shocked by MTV Striptease Fuss. Internet Movie Database. December 3, 2002. Retrieved August 19, 2005. Cook, Shanon. Mariah before breakdown -- 'It all seems like one continuous day'. CNN. August 14, 2001. Retrieved August 19, 2005. Mariah Carey Ads Say The Voice Will Be Back, But She Says It Never Left. Yahoo! Music. March 28, 2005. Retrieved December 9, 2005.Friedman, Roger. Mariah Melts Down; Madonna Disappoints. FOX News. July 26, 2001. Retrieved December 9, 2005. (breakdown)Tatara, Paul. Review: 'The Bachelor' -- cold feet, bad film. CNN.com. November 9, 1999. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Friedman, Roger. Mariah Makes Good in Mob Movie. FOX News. January 14, 2002. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Moss, Corey. Despite 'Glitter,' Mariah Carey's Movie Career Could Still Sparkle. MTV.com. February 20, 2002. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Moody, Nekesa Mumbi U2 Upstages Mariah Carey with Five Grammys. February 9, 2006. Retrieved February 9, 2006. Associated Press.Mariah Carey Makes A Sick Boy's Dreams Come True. Popdirt.com. December 23, 2002. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Caleb Boulter)Fresh Air Fund Summer Programs: Summer Camping. Fresh Air Fund. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Camp Mariah)Mariah Carey To Receive Congressional Award For Charity Efforts. MTV.com. April 13, 1999. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Horizon Award)Vineyard, Jennifer and Norris, John. Mariah Carey Talking To Publishers About Autobiography. MTV.com. September 25, 2005. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (autobiography)Vineyard, Jennifer. Mariah Carey Plans To Pen Series Of Children's Books. MTV.com June 9, 2004. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Mariah's lingerie to be released next year. Tonight.co.za. December 14, 2004. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Kiss Kiss)