Mariah Carey is the biggest-selling solo artist of the Nineties, and there's no doubting her superstar status.
You don't just turn up for an interview with Carey: separate meetings with both her UK and international PR, a “chat” about questions and an hour wait in the bar are all completed before you even reach the entrance of her penthouse suite at Park Lane's Dorchester Hotel in London.
The ante-rooms buzz with the activities of various guard-like hotel staff, make-up artists and other members of the Carey entourage. Inside her sanctum, however, all is calm.
Carey sits alone sipping wine in a mirror-walled chamber decorated with fake gold bird cages. Even the Queen of Pop seems impressed with the decor as she points out an appropriate golden butterfly tucked into the ornate plastering.
It has not been the easiest of periods for Carey who has had to endure intense analysis of her more cutting-edge work and, above all, her personal life after the split in May from her husband of four years, Sony Music Entertainment president and chief operating officer Tommy Mottola.
Every lyric of her album has been dissected to establish some inference about her marriage and every collaboration investigated to insinuate a new personal relationship.
And on this side of the Atlantic, she has something else to contend with: her album, Butterfly, is languishing at number 39 in the UK charts — one place behind a Dolly Parton best-of. It is understandable that while Carey still smoulders, she smoulders suspiciously.
She is unbowed, however, by Butterfly's inauspicious start.
“I'm really pleased with how it's doing,” she says, “It's my favourite album. I feel really close to it; it's an extension of me.”
But behind Dolly Parton? “I don't think Butterfly has got a chance yet over here. My guess is as good as your's why. I wouldn't want to create a negative view of things. I'm trying a different strategy. I want to open up to as many fans as possible. To me Europe always takes longer. I didn't break here [in the UK] until my third album.”
Before Butterfly, Carey had 80m album sales worldwide under her belt and she is further buoyed by the success of “Honey” debuting at number one in the US singles chart.
She appears to understand that there is a large chunk of her fans who would prefer her to stick to what they believe she does best — ballads. While “Honey” (which reached number three in the UK) appealed to people who had never been Mariah fans, the title-track single, out on November 24, is just the sort of ballad to satisfy the fanbase.
She says, “A certain type of fan will embrace the ballads. Butterfly as a song, as a record, it's better. I tried to keep the emotional quality of the vocal up. If people enjoy the ballads they ought to know they exist on this record.”
Carey is unrepentant about swapping duets with Boyz II Men and Luther Vandross for collaborations with Q-Tip and Sean “Puffy” Combs and is demonstratively positive when asked about working with the hottest names in R&B and hip hop.
“Please don't say it's about the coolest people. It's not about the coolest people in town. It's about whoever has creatively inspired me. I've always been a fan of hip hop; I grew up in New York. I worked with Puffy Daddy before ‘Fantasy’,” she says.
Yet the fans are calling the tunes as much as Mariah; it is a ballad, “Breakdown,” which is likely to be released after “Butterfly” as, without any encouragement from Columbia, the track has already received more than 600 spins on US radio. Carey says, “One radio station made it into a commercial and it became the most requested thing on there. So we're probably going to do that.”
It is typical of Carey to know such facts. She pays as much attention to her music (her own career and her Crave label) as she can. But at 27 years of age, the Queen of Pop is uncomfortable with questions about her personal life, constantly playing with her clothes and rearranging her hair. And while she's immersed herself in work after the failure of her marriage, taking an obsessively hands on approach to her career after breaking with manager Randy Hoffman in June, she says she longs for some time to herself. “I'm producing records, I'm recording, I'm writing, I'm trying to find time to hang out with my friends. That's my life,” she says.
And she shies from questions on Mottola. “Tommy and I have, and always will have, a good relationship, even though it might be rocky now. I don't know what he thinks of the album,” she says.
Relationships seem far from Carey's mind at the moment, and she's most enthusiastic about a film which is being written for her and which she will shoot next year.
“It's set in the Seventies, the soul music era. I feel it's a whole different outlet for me. Who am I playing? That's for you to find out. I've kept one song back for the soundtrack, which is a ballad,” she adds.
Carey appears as ready as ever to reach her potential, if only the fans will let her.
Epic imprint Crave was founded in New York in February by Mariah Carey with Arista Records senior vice-president Rick Bisceglia as president.
The aim, Carey says, is “to have a close-knit label where artists can feel comfortable,… discover great music and get it the attention it deserves.”
Carey and Bisceglia work as partners overseeing Crave's creative and business activities, with marketing, sales and administration support from Epic and distribution worldwide on Sony.
Carey says that while Bisceglia runs the day-to-day affairs she determinedly makes time for the label. “They like to know I'm there. I have personal relationships with the artists and they respect it. I'm having a big hand in it, like conversations with people's lawyers and really having to focus with what's going on with scheduling,” she says.
The label's first signing, Allure, is the only artist to date which has had a UK release with their single, “Head Over Heels (featuring Nas),” reaching number 18 in June.
The label's other groups are Detroit's R&B act Seven Mile, the pop act Jakaranda, rappers Negro League, Lutricia McNeal and DJ Company and UK releases are tentatively scheduled for February to April next year.