"Loverboy" is a song by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey. It was released on June 19, 2001, by Virgin Records America as the lead single from her eighth studio album Glitter, the soundtrack to the 2001 film of the same name. Written and produced by Carey, Larry Blackmon, Thomas Jenkins and Clark Kent, "Loverboy" is built around a sample from "Candy" by the funk band Cameo, who are also featured on the track. Lyrically, the song finds Carey fantasizing about her loverboy, a man that will fulfill her physical and sexual desires. The recording was accompanied by an official remix, titled "Loverboy Remix", featuring guest artists Ludacris, Da Brat, Shawnna and Twenty II.
The track was subject to controversy, following confirmed reports that Carey's ex-husband Tommy Mottola stole the idea of sampling the singer's original planned sample, Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Firecracker", in favor of Jennifer Lopez over a month after Carey had signed for it. Since Carey's Glitter was to be released over a month after Lopez's album J.Lo, she changed the song's melody to sample from "Candy" instead. Further controversy ensued following its release, as Carey was hospitalized for severe mental and physical exhaustion, following poorly received television appearances involving both the song and album.
After the song's release in the United States, "Loverboy" stalled on the Billboard Hot 100 due to weak radio airplay. The single jumped 58 spots to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending August 4, 2001, with sales driven by a Virgin promotion offering the CD for a bargain-priced 49 cents. "Loverboy" only spent 14 weeks on the chart. It also became Carey's first lead single to not reach number one. Though it peaked at number one in Croatia and reached the top 10 in Australia and Canada, the song failed to garner strong charting elsewhere, reaching the top 20 in Portugal, Italy and the United Kingdom.
"Loverboy" received generally mixed reviews from music critics; many called the song unoriginal and dated while others felt that the featured artists (primarily on the remix version) overpowered Carey and made the song disorganized. A music video, directed by David LaChapelle, was shot for both versions of the song. The first version features Carey as a scantily-clad car girl, waving a flag as her loverboy finishes a race. The video for the remix version features similar footage, only including shots of the song's guests in race-cars during their verses. She performed "Loverboy" live on The Sweet Sweet Fantasy Tour in 2016, as well as her Caution World Tour in 2019.
In 2020, the original "Firecracker"-sampled version of "Loverboy" was included on Carey's eighth compilation album The Rarities and was released as a limited edition double A-side Japanese single in December 2020.
Background and release
Originally planned to be released at a later date, "Loverboy" was leaked to radio on June 1, 2001. As a result, Virgin Records pushed the release date in order to control the leak. Following the release of "Loverboy", Carey embarked on a short promotional campaign for the song. On July 18, 2001, Virgin scheduled Carey to do a day of interviews with radio stations. After she called in an hour late to Q100 in Atlanta at 9:00 a.m. and the hosts informed Carey that she was late, the rest of the day's interviews were canceled. The next day, Carey made a surprise appearance on the MTV program Total Request Live (TRL). As the show's host Carson Daly began taping following a commercial break, Carey came out onto the filming stage, pushing an ice cream cart while wearing a large men's shirt. Seemingly anxious and exhilarated, Carey began giving out individual bars of ice cream to fans and guests on the program, while waving to the crowd down below on Times Square, while diverging into a rambling monologue regarding therapy. Carey then walked to Daly's platform and began a striptease, in which she shed her shirt to reveal a tight yellow and green ensemble, leading him to exclaim "Mariah Carey has lost her mind!". While she later revealed that Daly was aware of her presence in the building prior to her appearance, she admitted that he was meant to act surprised in order to provide a more dramatic effect for the program.
Carey's appearance on TRL garnered strong media attention, with many critics and newspapers citing her behavior as "troubled" and "erratic". In the days following her appearance on TRL, Carey had begun displaying "erratic behavior" during a public record signing for the single at Tower Records in New York. As the appearance was filmed, she began rambling on several points, leading her to discuss radio-host Howard Stern and how his form of humor on his program bothered her greatly. At that point, Carey's publicist Cindi Berger grabbed the microphone from her hand and ordered the cameras to stop filming. A few days later, Carey began posting irregular voice notes and messages on her official website: I'm trying to understand things in life right now and so I really don't feel that I should be doing music right now. What I'd like to do is just a take a little break or at least get one night of sleep without someone popping up about a video. All I really want is [to] just be me and that's what I should have done in the first place ... I don't say this much but guess what, I don't take care of myself. After the removal of the messages, Berger commented that Carey had been "obviously exhausted and not thinking clearly" when she posted the letters. Two days later on July 26, she was suddenly hospitalized, citing "extreme exhaustion" and a "physical and emotional breakdown". Following the heavy media coverage surrounding Carey's publicized breakdown and hospitalization, Virgin Records and 20th Century Fox delayed the release of both the film's soundtrack and the film itself for three weeks: from August 21 to September 11 and from August 31 to September 21, respectively.
Following Carey's absence from the public eye, as well as her abandonment of promotional appearances for the film and soundtrack, her unprecedented $100 million five-album record deal with Virgin Records (EMI Records) was bought out for $50 million. The decision was brought out due to the low sales of the project, as well as the negative publicity surrounding her breakdown. Soon after, Carey flew to Capri, Italy for a period of five months, in which she began writing material for her new album, stemming from all the personal experiences she had endured throughout the past year. Additionally, she founded her own label modelled after her initials, MonarC Entertainment and signed a new three-album record deal with Island Records, valued at over $23 million.
In 2020, the original and previously unreleased version of "Loverboy" that sampled "Firecracker" was included on Carey's compilation album The Rarities as part of the "#MC30" initiative. The latter was a campaign marking the 30th anniversary of Carey's self-titled debut studio album, Mariah Carey (1990), and coincides with her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey (2020). "Loverboy" (Firecracker – Original Version) was released as a limited edition double A-side single with "Here We Go Around Again", another song taken from The Rarities.
Composition
"Loverboy" 's hook is built around a sample of "Candy", by Cameo. Aside from borrowing from the melody, "Loverboy" features the members of Cameo, including group leader Larry Blackmon, as vocalists on the track. According to Chuck Taylor from Billboard, "Loverboy" is reminiscent of several of Carey's previous lead singles, as they too were predominantly built around samples of older songs. He described some of its background flourishes as "swirling harmonies overtop" and noted the inclusion of many shouts and ad-libs from Carey and Cameo.
Due to the song's heavy usage of the "Candy" sample and the heavy blend of instrumentation and vocals, he said that to his bewilderment, the song was "devoid of a standard hook". NMEs Elios Therepio felt the idea of sampling "Candy" was genius "on paper", but once it was recorded, it suffered from various miscalculations. He felt it did not match the success Carey's previous single, "Fantasy" (which also recalled its melody from an older song), and criticized the inclusion of several over-the-top "keyboard and synth arrangements". Regarding Carey's voice, aside from describing it as "obscured", Therepio expressed his difficulty in understanding her lyrical phrases, claiming it was weakened from "no-everyone-can-understand-what-you're-saying'-itis". Gil Kaufman from MTV News noted the inclusion of "bouncing funky bass [and] rock guitars", while Roger Caitlin of the Hartford Courant described how Carey was often reduced to "breathy background vocals" on "Loverboy".
Lyrically, the song finds Carey looking for her "loverboy" and a sugar-daddy who is going to "love her right". Therepio found it ironic how Carey was crooning for a sugar-daddy, when she had just left one (referring to her older ex-husband Tommy Mottola). Additionally, he felt Carey was molding her image from that of a balladeer, to a "pin-up image" of a pop star. The song's lyrics are racy and feature the protagonist asking for her "loverboy" to fulfill her sexual desires: "Loverboy come on and love me / Give me more".
Sampling controversy
Throughout 2000, Carey had already been writing and recording material for Glitter. During this period, she developed the concept for the album's lead single, "Loverboy". Originally, Carey had sampled the melody and hook from the 1978 Yellow Magic Orchestra song "Firecracker", using an interpolation of it throughout the chorus and introduction. In early theatrical trailers for Glitter, the original version of "Loverboy" was still featured. As Carey had ended her contract with Columbia Records, Jennifer Lopez was signed by Tommy Mottola and had begun recording material for her album, J.Lo (2001). According to The Inc.'s Irv Gotti, Mottola, head of Columbia and Carey's ex-husband, knew of Carey's usage of the "Firecracker" sample and attempted to have Lopez use the same sample before her. At the time, Carey had become increasingly paranoid over outside executives being informed about Glitter, especially following news of Mottola's "theft" of the song.
When the music publishers for "Firecracker" were questioned, they confirmed that Carey had licensed usage of the sample first, and Lopez's team had signed for it over one month later, under Mottola's arrangement. Following the scandal, Carey was not able to use the original sample, as Lopez's album was to be released far earlier than Glitter. She subsequently changed the composition of "Loverboy" and incorporated a new sample, "Candy" by Cameo. The "Firecracker" sample ended up being used by Lopez on her song "I'm Real", from her album J.Lo, while the original version of Carey's "Loverboy" with the "Firecracker" sample was later included on her compilation album The Rarities (2020).
Critical reception
"Loverboy" was met with generally mixed reviews from music critics; many were not impressed with the incorporation of the sample and felt the song did not lead Carey into any newer ground or innovation. Additionally, several reviewers were not impressed with Carey's concealed vocals and the song's complex production. Sarah Rodman of the Boston Herald described the song's production as a "traffic-jam" and wrote "'Loverboy' is another in an increasingly long line of glitzy, candy-coated, creatively stunted song." Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Natalie Nichols felt "Loverboy" was "predictable" and presented nothing new for Carey's audience. USA Todays Edna Gunderson wrote the song off as "skimpy", while Glenn Gamboa from Newsday described its overall reception as "lukewarm".