Mariah Carey is the debut studio album by American singer Mariah Carey. It was released on June 12, 1990, by Columbia Records. Its music incorporates a range of genres with a mix of slow ballads and up-tempo tracks. Originally, she wrote four songs with Ben Margulies, which solely constituted her demo tape. After Carey was signed to Columbia, all four songs, after being altered and partially re-recorded, made the final cut for the album. Aside from Margulies, Carey worked with a range of professional writers and producers, including Rhett Lawrence, Ric Wake and Narada Michael Walden, all of whom were hired by then-Columbia Chief executive officer (CEO), Tommy Mottola.
Mariah Carey received generally positive reviews, with critics praising Carey's vocal performance and technique, but were ambivalent towards the songwriting. It became a commercial success, topping the US Billboard 200 for eleven consecutive weeks. Mariah Carey was certified nine-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of nine million copies in the US. The album experienced similar success in Canada, where it topped the charts and was certified seven-times platinum. Mariah Carey fared well in other worldwide territories, reaching the top ten of charts in Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK. Worldwide, the album has sold more than 15 million copies.
Five singles were released from the album, four of which reached number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100. Her debut single, "Vision of Love" was chosen as the album's lead single, topping the charts in Canada, New Zealand and the US. The song was critically lauded, and is regarded as one of the greatest debut singles by a female artist. With the following three singles, "Love Takes Time", "Someday" and "I Don't Wanna Cry" reaching number one in the US, Carey became the first artist since the Jackson 5 to have their first four singles top the charts in the United States.
Background
In 1988, a 19-year-old Mariah Carey moved out of her mother's house in Long Island, and into a small apartment in Manhattan. She had a demo tape consisting of four songs, which she had written during her high school years with Ben Margulies. As 1988 unfolded, Carey still had no record deal, and struggled to draw the attention of record executives in New York. While working several jobs, she continued writing and producing music with Margulies, making changes and additions to the demo. After months of difficulty, Carey met with singer Brenda K. Starr, and soon began singing back-up for her. Eventually, Starr began hearing what she described as "glimpses" of Carey's voice throughout sessions, and noticed her "gifted voice". She realized Carey was capable of achieving success, but only needed help to break through into mainstream music.
One night, Starr took Carey to a record industry gala, attempting to convince a record label executive to listen to her demo. Jerry L. Greenberg, president of Atlantic Records took notice of her. As Carey handed him the record, Tommy Mottola quickly grabbed the tape, insisting that he would deal with "the project". As Mottola got into his limousine later that evening, he played Carey's demo and quickly realized the talent that he had just discovered. He quickly returned to the event, but a discouraged Carey had already left.
After a week of tracking her down through Starr's management, Mottola got in touch with Carey and brought her over to Columbia Records. After meeting with Carey and her mother Patricia for the first time, Mottola said, "When I heard and saw Mariah, there was absolutely no doubt that she was in every way destined for super-stardom." After a few brief meetings, Carey was signed to Columbia in December 1988.
Mottola had assumed the top position at Sony, the parent label of Columbia, and began taking the company through various stages of change. He believed it was very important for the label's success to discover a young and very talented female vocalist, to rival Whitney Houston from Arista Records, or a pop star to match Madonna, who was signed to Sire Records at the time. Mottola felt that Carey represented both. His confidence in Carey led him to hire a range of talented and well-known musicians and songwriters to assist with Carey's demo, as well as to create new material. Among them were Ric Wake, Narada Michael Walden, and Rhett Lawrence.
Recording and composition
Carey and Ben Margulies began writing prior to Carey's signing, and had composed over fourteen songs; seven of which earned a place on the album. Originally, Carey and Margulies planned to produce the entire album as well, an idea her label did not permit. On the album, Carey worked with a range of producers and writers, including from Ben Margulies, Rhett Lawrence, Narada Michael Walden, Ric Wake and Walter Afanasieff; the latter would continue working extensively with Carey on future projects. Mottola asked L.A. Reid and Babyface to work on the album, but the duo declined due to wanting to exclusively produce for artists signed to their own LaFace Records.
As production for the album began, Carey worked with Walden in New York, where they produced "I Don't Wanna Cry". While he described Carey as "very shy", he noted how professional she was for someone her age. Additionally, Carey wrote "There's Got to Be a Way" during her first recording session with Wake. During the session, they wrote four songs, but they only produced the latter song for the album. After flying to New York and working with Carey, Walden was astonished by her voice. Together, they collaborated on transforming many of the demo's songs into more commercial recordings, which took place in Tarpan Studios in San Rafael, California. For her work with Lawrence, Carey traveled to New York once again. In the studio, she presented him with the demo of "Vision of Love" which she had written with Margulies years prior. Lawrence saw "potential" in the song, but he did not think much of it in its early stages. He described the song's sound as having a "fifties sort of shuffle". According to Lawrence, Carey needed a more contemporary sound, so they met in the studio alongside Margulies and producer Chris Toland. They added a new arrangement to the original chord progression, while Carey changed the song's melody and key. Afterwards, Margulies added few drum notes to the arrangement, including additional guitar and bass notes.
Carey worked with Walden on several songs including "I Don't Wanna Cry". Together, they decided to "slow down the tempo" and create a "crying type of ballad", one which according to him, featured a direct inspiration from gospel genres. After they completed the song, Lawrence noted how much of a perfectionist Carey was. He said that after finishing the song, she returned to the studio the following week, all in order to correct "one line" that troubled her. As one of the four original songs she gave to Mottola, "Someday" became Wake's favorite from the start, "I loved that song right from the beginning...Then Mariah called me one day and said 'I'd love to do it if you want to do it.' It was great, I'm glad she called me." During its recording, Carey revealed how the song came into existence. She had been working on the demo with Margulies in his studio. As he began playing different notes on the electric keyboard, Carey directed him on the chord changes, while providing the chorus, lyrics and melody. In "All in Your Mind", Carey does a great vocal performance, doing staccatos up to F7. According to the artist, her voice "split" while doing those ornaments. While she thought to remove it from the song's recording, Wake and Walden were very impressed by the vocal flips, claiming that it would fit in perfectly.
By May 1990, the debut album was being mastered when Carey wrote "Love Takes Time" with Ben Margulies. Margulies said, "It was sort of a gospelish thing ... and we recorded a very quick demo. It was just a piano vocal demo – I played live piano, and she sang it." Carey was on a mini-tour of ten states to promote "Vision of Love", playing acoustically with a piano player and three back-up singers. While on a company plane, she played the demo of "Love Takes Time" for Columbia Records president Don Ienner. "All the important guys were on the plane," Margulies said. "Tommy Mottola, Ienner, and Bobby Colomby." Carey was told the song was a "career-maker", and that it had to go on the first album. She protested – her album was already being mastered, and she intended this ballad for her next release.
The demo was sent to producer Afanasieff. When Carey flew west to work with Narada Michael Walden on some tracks for her first album, Tommy Mottola and Don Ienner were impressed with Afanasieff's work and gave him an executive staff producer job with the label. "I guess to see if he made the right choice, (Tommy) called me up one day," remembers Afanasieff. "He said, 'We've got this Mariah Carey album done, but there's a song that she and Ben Margulies wrote that is phenomenal, and I want to try everything we can to put it on the album.' I said, 'What do you want me to do?' and he said, 'You only have a couple of days, but are you ready to cut it?' I couldn't believe the opportunity that it was. I'd never produced anything by myself up until that time." The demo was very close to what Mottola wanted the finished product to be, according to Afanasieff. "We cut the song and the music and the basics in about a day – and the only reason is this deadline. It was do it or we were gonna miss out on the whole thing. We got the tape and recorded everything and we got on the plane and went to New York (and) did her vocals. She did all the backgrounds, practically sang all night...We came back to the studio that afternoon, and we had to fix one line very quickly, and then (engineer) Dana (Jon Chapelle) and I got back on the plane with the tape, went back to the studio in Sausalito, and mixed it. So it was a three-day process: a day and a half for music, kind of like a day for vocals, and a day for mixing."
Afanasieff heard from Columbia executives as soon as they received the mix. They wanted Carey's vocal a little louder, so a remix was quickly completed. The producer asked if the song would still make the debut album, and was told, "We're going to do our best." On the first copies of the album that were printed, "Love Takes Time" was not listed on the cassette or compact disc liner notes, even though the song was on the cassette or CD itself. "(On) some of the original first copies of the record, they didn't have time to print the name of the song," Margulies laughs. "And so the song's on there, but it doesn't say that it's on there. It was a song that actually was strong enough to stop the pressing...I don't know if they had to throw away a few hundred copies.""Hero" inside story
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