Late afternoon sun streams in through a skyscraper window. Rays flicker and dance across Mariah Carey's brow, highlighting her wide almond eyes. As she gently sweeps her auburn mane to one side, her facial features are defined by a warm glow. She is even more striking in person than she appeared the first time I saw her.
That image remains vivid. Sheathed in black and set against a romantic backdrop reminiscent of Maxfield Parrish, a figure of natural beauty and subtle sexuality. But it was Carey's angelic voice, not looks, which really seduced the viewer on the video version of her debut single “Vision Of Love.” The video won Carey the 1991 Grammy for best pop vocal performance (female) and forged the way for a Grammy in the category of best new artist.
At 22 years old, sometimes Mariah herself can't even believe her remarkable success. “It's weird because I planned this in my mind for so many years, and to actually be living it… it's sort of like ‘Could that be me?’. It feels like someone could hit me on the head at any moment and I'd wake up.”
Dreams of being a singer haunted Mariah from the early age of four. Encouraged by her mother, a vocal coach and singer with the New York City Opera, she joined in when friends and students dropped by the house for jam sessions. Her older sister and brother mixed R&B into the musical environment and Mariah soon developed an affinity for gospel. By 18 she had a writing collaboration with Ben Margulies, and was shopping a demo. Although Warner Bros were interested in using one of her songs in the movie Lean On Me, Mariah wished for bigger things. Her fairy godmother must have been listening.
As legend has it, the story began at a party in 1988 when Carey passed her demo onto Tommy Mottola, president of Columbia's parent company, Sony Music Entertainment. Upon his departure, Mottola popped the tape into his car stereo and was so taken with the singer that he immediately returned to court her for the label.
“I almost didn't go to that party,” Carey reflects, ”but the woman who I had been singing backup vocal for, Brenda K. Starr, invited me, so I went. And thank God I did, because that happened and about a month later I signed the deal.”
Fate may have played a hand in the discovery story but nothing was left to chance thereafter. Once on board the Columbia label, Carey's career was personally navigated by Mottola. In addition to being Executive Producer (of both her albums) he mapped an intricate success strategy. Carey's performance at the 1990 National Association of Recording Merchandisers was step one, followed by a nine city promotional tour for radio personnel and record retailers. (The usual route is to send a tape, not the artist). The pre-release buzz quickly spread to the public arena when Mottola arranged for singing slots on both a well-known late night television broadcast and the nationally viewed NBA basketball playoffs.
Even after the debut was a hit, momentum was maintained with store displays and full page ads in trade publications. It was reportedly one of the most expensive marketing campaigns for a new artist, and the investment paid off — international unit sales are now over 8 million, Mariah Carey was the Billboard No. 1 album for 1991, and one of two albums to appear in both the pop and R&B top 10 (the other was Whitney Houston's I'm Your Baby Tonight).
How involved was Mariah with the decision making aspects of the campaign — for example, what she wore?
“First of all I hate the way I looked in the beginning, but that's just me. This is how I dress, I've always been this way,” she says managing to look radiant in jeans and a blue t-shirt. “No one told me what to wear. I could have come out with being a lot more vampy, but I tried to keep it simple. I didn't want to be overshadowed by trendiness: I wanted to have people focus on my voice and my songs.”
Mariah Carey's soft-spoken candour is somewhat surprising. Curiously, she hasn't done much press, and from a feminist perspective one could get the impression that she was being “handled,” or even that the boys upstairs didn't think she could speak her own mind. It's a perception she's quick to challenge.
“You know it's very easy for people to look at things and say ‘Oh the mean old men must be putting her in a room and protecting her from everyone.’ I think its more chauvinistic to look at it like that. Because I'm young and a woman, people automatically assume I'm being controlled, not ‘Oh well I guess she doesn't want to over expose herself’ or ‘Oh I guess she's holding back.’ I didn't want people to get sick of me before I had a chance to get out there.”
In fact, she's never really been out there — on tour that is.
“If there's anything people are advising me about it's touring,” she recalls. “My songs are so strenuous to sing — because I have to make them that way for some crazy reason — that going out and singing my songs and others, let's say 20 songs, five time a week, would be insanity. I'd definitely mess up my voice. I would love to tour, but I want to wait until I can do the best tour I can do where I won't jeopardise my voice. It's the most important thing in the world to me.”
So what kind of exercises does she do to keep her voice in shape?
“I sing every day with the radio, I've always loved to do that. My mother was a vocal coach and still is, and an opera singer, so from very early on I started out knowing about breathing, and about not straining your neck, and how not to get nodes on your vocal chords; so that s just something I have in my mind. So I don't really do any exercises now, I just sing.”
Although Mariah has inherited the genes of an opera singer, she swears she's never attempted to shatter a glass. But what's the truth about her vocal range: is it five or seven octaves?
“I don't know what it is. I think that's speculation. How high I can sing really depends on how much sleep I get the night before and I'm still experimenting with it now. When I go into the studio I'm just having a good time. The song ‘Emotions’ was just me playing with my voice and having fun.”
The song was an instant hit, and the eponymous album has already sold over 4 million units. In an attempt to make the arrangements less slick than her debut, where she worked with people known for the “grandiosity of their productions,” as she says, Carey co-produced the entire record and received a Grammy nomination.
Currently she is co-producing one of her back-up singers, Trey Lorenz. (The album is due out on Epic Records this Autumn). The two appeared on Carey's segment of MTV and a duet, “I'll Be There” by the Jackson Five, (off Mariah's EP Unplugged) has been released as a single. Portions of the proceeds will be donated to various charitable organisations, including one for AIDS research.
Meanwhile, it's that time in the interview to bring it all back home. Mariah was named one of the top 100 Irish Americans for 1992. Is she into her Irish roots?
“Well, yeah. My mother is totally Irish. Her family is from County Cork and her maiden name was Hickey, and her mother's maiden name before that was Egan, and before that Sullivan. So she's really, really Irish. However, I'm not just Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan. People often ask what I am and who I identify with. I consider myself a combination of those three things, and just as a human being. I think there's too much emphasis placed on race.”
What's the biggest misconception about her?
“I would say a lot of people have tried to make me out to look like a bitch. And I'm not. So I'd say that's a big misconception, and I think it comes with the territory. Perhaps because I want to control things that I do, people look at me in that way, or maybe because they're jealous of a young person being successful they try to pin me with that name. I try to go out of my way to be nice, especially to people like fans who come up to me on the street and other people who I interact with. I resent it when people make up stories about me”
From Bette Davis to Barbra Streisand, accomplished women have always gotten the bitch tag. Although Carey's fans don't seem to care — Rolling Stone Readers' Poll named her Best Female Artist and Sexiest Female Artist — insult is added to injury when personal attacks get redirected to the artist's profession. Such was the case when Rolling Stone Critics' Poll named her Worst Female Artist. Is she sensitive to that?
“Put it this way, I didn't lose any sleep over it. When I first came out, 99 per cent of what I read was praising me, and as soon as I sold over a certain amount of records — into the millions — and became a popular singer, the critics turned on me and everything was ‘Oh how come she's singing so much?’ and this and that. I think that it's not cool for critics to like me, critics who want to be alternative and different.”
Not this one. I like Mariah Carey. Call me mainstream but I think she has a magnificent voice. From pop songs and torch ballads to gutsy gospel, Mariah has artfully romanced the masses. But would she ever consider doing anything that's risky in the lyrical sense?
“I don't know, I write about what's inside me and how the music makes me feel and as I grow up and evolve maybe those things will become different. I'm not that lyrically driven, usually the melody is first.”
There is one exception, “Make It Happen”: If you believe in yourself enough / And know what you want / You're gonna make it happen / and if you get down on your knees at night / And pray to the Lord / He's gonna make it happen…
“When I wrote that song I really didn't think it was going to be a single,” she says. “I thought maybe they'd think it was too religious to be put out, but I felt it was important for me to write that.”
Although Carey doesn't conform to a structured religion she has her own beliefs that are dear to her. Seemingly, she places equal emphasis on God and the individual: which way is it?
“The way I wrote it, the way I intended it to be was God, but everyone has their own interpretation. I am religious in my own way: I did pray very hard for this to happen and it happened, and I was just relating that to people. A lot of people write to me and say ‘I want to be a singer but I don't know if I can do it.’ You'll never do it with that attitude.”