The vocalist dropped her first-ever LP in 1990 and immediately became a chart-topping sensation.
Mariah Carey
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“We don’t look at her as a dance-pop artist,” Columbia Records president Don Ienner noted to Rolling Stone about his latest signing Mariah Carey in 1990. “We look at her as a franchise.” It’s fair to say that some pretty lofty expectations were placed on the diva ahead of her first studio album’s release. Luckily, Mariah Carey achieved them and then some.
Indeed, the record spent 11 weeks atop the Billboard 200, helped Carey pick up the Grammy for Best New Artist, and racked up sales of more than 15 million to become the biggest pop debut of the era. And although hitmakers Rhett Larence, Narada Michael Walden, and Walter Afanasieff were brought in to help hone its sound, each and every one of its 11 tracks was co-penned by Carey, very much proving that her songwriting talents were as forceful as her mesmeric vocal range.
In fact, alongside earliest creative partner Ben Margulies, Carey had also produced the demos which first caught the attention of Sony’s head honcho and her future husband Tommy Mottola. (“When I heard and saw Mariah, there was absolutely no doubt that she was in every way destined for super-stardom,” the latter once remarked in another example of the music industry’s high hopes).
Of course, Carey would go on to surpass her early achievements with blockbuster records such as Music Box, Daydream, and 2005 comeback The Emancipation of Mimi. But her eponymous LP still stands up as an impressive springboard. Ahead of its 35th anniversary on June 12, we’ve ranked its octave-spanning offerings from worst to best.
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“Alone in Love”
Penned on a piano in her mother’s home, “Alone in Love” isn’t exactly a dud per se. But there’s little here to explain why, as revealed in her 2020 memoir The Meaning Of…, it remains one of the diva’s favorites. Indeed, Carey herself sounds as uninterested as the man who “got beyond the haze” and let her “lost inside the maze” – her lyrical ability hadn’t quite matured by this point – on a distinctly average adult contemporary ballad that instead of looking forward to the decade ahead, appeared stuck in the mid-1980s.
Listen here.
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“I Don’t Wanna Cry”
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo Carey’s fourth single landed her a fourth consecutive number one, a remarkable feat that had only previously been achieved 20 years earlier by The Jackson 5. This impressive chart stat is arguably more interesting than the song itself, a generic Latin-tinged heartbreak ballad which justified the singer’s concerns that working with Narada Michael Walden would make her music “too schmaltzy.” Indeed, despite its record-equaling success and the fact it boasts one of her finest early powerhouse performances, Carey pretty much ignored the track on the live stage for a good two decades.
Listen above.
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“All In Your Mind”
Margulies finally gets the chance to showcase the production skills that helped bag his high school classmate a record deal on a subtle mid-tempo tailor-made for the Quiet Storm format. Indeed, the mellow vibes of “All In Your Mind” suggests Mariah Carey would have been more of a mood piece than an all-conquering blockbuster had Columbia not insisted on recruiting some more established hitmakers, too. But Carey is in fine form, even surprising herself (“I’m doing a high note at the end, and then two notes came out at once”) with her whistling register as she tries to convince an anxious lover that their relationship isn’t at death’s door.
Listen here.
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“You Need Me”
Mariah goes rock. Well, kinda. “You Need Me” kicks off with a piercing axeman solo which evokes Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and also serves up an air guitar-friendly middle eight on a feisty kiss-off in which Carey’s vocals grunt rather than glide. Indeed, the singer appears to relish embracing her more vengeful side (“Baby, I’m not gonna tolerate this game that you play, no/ You’ll regret it if you desert me this way”) on a pop-rock crossover which may well have given the likes of Pink and Kelly Clarkson a few ideas. Hell hath no fury like a chart-topping diva scorned.
Listen here.
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“Vanishing”
For many of her adoring lambs, “Vanishing” is Carey at her purest. Armed with nothing but a grand piano (played by the late jazz fusion master Richard Tee), the diva delivers a vocal masterclass which ranges from restrained whispers to glass-shattering whistle tones. The poetic tale of faded romance (“Searching for spirits of the past/Just a trace of your existence to grasp”) is also the first time that Carey took on producer duties, once again proving that even in her Tommy Mottola-micro-managed days, she was still able to assert far more creative control than given credit for.
Listen here.
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“Sent From Up Above”
By far and away the album’s most optimistic love song, “Sent From Up Above” finds Carey waxing lyrical about a relationship so impossibly perfect that it “even surpasses paradise.” Perhaps surprisingly, she envelops all the unashamed gushing not in slushy synths and slow dance-friendly beats, but a subtle blend of sensual grooves, R&B melodies, and the kind of electric sitars that defined the lush ‘70s soul of The Stylistics. It’s the closest the record comes to the sound that shaped Carey’s career from her fifth studio effort Daydream and beyond.
Listen here.
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“Love Takes Time”
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo Recorded when the album was considered done and dusted, Carey had initially intended for heartbreak anthem “Love Takes Time” to be the launchpad for her sophomore. But Colombia bosses were so taken with its simple but sweet charms they shouted “stop the press.” The last-minute addition proved to be a masterstroke, its number one success confirming, as if any confirmation was needed, that Carey was here to stay. It also kickstarted the fruitful creative partnership with Walter Afanasieff that would propel her even further into the realm of superstardom.
Listen above.
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“Prisoner”
Considering Carey’s early career seemed intrinsically linked to the power ballad, it’s surprising to rediscover how much her first studio effort leans toward the upbeat. Look no further than “Prisoner,” the kind of freestyle banger that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Paula Abdul’s similarly ubiquitous debut. In fact, she even throws in a self-referential rap (“You see me and then say ‘Mariah I miss you’ Expect me to hug and kiss you?”) which brings to mind MC Skat Kat. The penultimate track is arguably Mariah Carey’s most disposable, yet it’s also unarguably the most fun.
Listen here.
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“There’s Got To Be a Way”
“A broken man without a home/ Desperate and so alone/ A victim of society/ No one really wants to see.” Okay, so a young Carey was never going to rival Bob Dylan when it came to social commentary. But on an album dominated by affairs of the heart, “There’s Got To Be a Way” proved that the star’s way with words could run a little deeper. The well-meaning call for change is also a vibrant one, combining blue-eyed soul, pop, and uplifting gospel harmonies (there are definite traces of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” in the rousing outro) alongside the record’s most piercing high note.
Listen here.
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“Someday”
After topping the Hot 100 with a mid-tempo and a ballad, Carey displayed her versatility by reaching the same position with a bona fide bop. “Someday” also proved the diva had her finger on the pulse, its New Jack Swing vibes perfectly aligning with the movement that spawned number ones that very same year from Hi-Five, Janet Jackson, and Karyn White. While the corny guitar solo – which substituted the original’s horns very much without Carey’s consent – places the track firmly at the beginning of the ‘90s, it remains one of her most joyous dancefloor cuts.
Listen here.
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“Vision of Love”
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo “Treated me kind,” Carey bellows out on the opening line of her debut single in one almighty statement of intent. By the time, “Vision of Love” had run the gamut of her vocal techniques, the previously unknown singer had firmly established herself as the dominant contender to Whitney Houston’s diva throne. Spending four weeks at No. 1, winning the best female pop vocal performance Grammy, and inspiring a generation of talent show contestants, the “Magna Carta of Melisma” is not only one of the most seminal moments of Carey’s glittering career, it’s one of the most seminal moments of contemporary pop.
Listen above.
