Mariah Carey is going to be a megastar. No doubt about it. Already she's become the only artist in America to top the Pop, Black and Adult Contemporary charts with a debut single. “Vision Of Love” is doing pretty well here, too — its updated doo-wop sound cutting through the current dance dominated chart like a buzz-saw through paper.
It's hard not to rave about 20-year-old Mariah, especially after listening to her self-titled debut album, which is currently the fastest selling US debut album since Tone Loc. It's hardly original, but it's totally classy: a distillation of classic soul and gospel influences. Mariah has taken the essence of Stevie Wonder, Minnie Ripperton, Gladys Knight and Al Green, building her songs on their solid frame.
Her amazing voice spans seven octaves and on top of that she writes the lyrics and melodies too, leaving her collaborators (including producers Narada “Whitney” Walden and Ric “Taylor Dane” Wake) to fill in the arrangements.
Mariah is staying at the Conrad Hotel in Chelsea Harbour during her two-day visit to Britain. She's a very sweet, skinny white girl (with an Irish-American mother and a half Venezuelan father) with long curly chestnut tresses and a Karen Carpenter chin. Dressed in a white halter-neck top, blue jeans and sneakers she's more sassy than naive, for sure. But she's neither cocky nor super-sophisticated considering her immense talent.
Mariah was “discovered” Cinderella-like almost two years ago at a Columbia Records party. Her friend, singer Brenda K Starr, who Mariah had been singing back-up vocals for, handed a demo tape to CBS bigwig Tommy Mottola who signed Mariah the next day after playing it in his car and rushing back to the party to find her.
This was no fluke. Ever since she was four years old, Mariah knew that she was going to be a singer. “I think I always knew that there was nothing else I really loved doing,” she says, relaxing in her small hotel suite that is bigger than her own Manhattan apartment which she shares with two cats. “My mother was a professional singer so I knew it was a feasible kind of profession, and it wasn't just a pipe dream.”
Mariah's mother, Patricia Carey, an opera singer-turned-vocal coach, was the major influence in Mariah's life. Aged six, Mariah was hanging out with her mother's musician friends, entertaining them with renditions of TV commercials, and getting an unrivalled musical education into the bargain. “Mom would say I was six going on 35,” she laughs. “I've always been like a grown-up.”
But Mariah's single-mindedness meant low marks at school. “I thought, ‘How is this going to help me in life? I'm going to be a singer anyway’.”
Greatly influenced by soul and gospel, she sessioned on the New York r&b scene whilst still in High School, where she met her longtime songwriting partner, Ben Margulies, seven years her senior.
One of the first songs they wrote together was “Alone In Love,” one of the stand out ballads on the album. The 16-year-old Mariah produced some incredibly mature lyrics about a couple's failing relationship. Dos she write from experience?
“I don't think so,” she smiles, “I kind of use everything I've ever thought about in my songs. And whatever the melody makes me feel is what I gear the lyrics towards.”
Mariah must have a vivid imagination, because despite writing songs about relationships, she's never had a serious one herself.
“I've had boyfriends,” she laughs, “but I've always been focused to doing music. I've always had this attitude, ‘ha ha, I'm leaving. I'm going to sing.’ So I guess they were a little more serious about it than I was. I knew I wasn't going to get out of High School and get married, you know what I mean?”
If Mariah sounds a little different from the rest of us, she probably is. She's totally prepared for the life of a megastar, and will probably end up a semi-recluse. She's convinced success won't change her, and the downside — a lack of privacy, few genuinely close friends — doesn't seem to faze her either.
But if there's one thing getting in the way of Mariah's inevitable rise, it's her uncanny vocal resemblance to Whitney Houston. Is there room for both of them? Whitney is probably going up the wall at the moment. “She probably doesn't think that some newcomer is gonna… you know what I mean? Actually, before I had a deal, a publisher wanted to take my songs and solicit them for Whitney Houston. I wouldn't do it. I wanted them for me.
“But I think the main difference between us is that I'm also a songwriter and I intend to experiment a lot. Whatever, I think I've only just begun.”
