When Mariah Carey releases her ninth Columbia collection, Rainbow, on Nov. 2, she will further solidify her standing as one of the top-selling female artists of the '90s. According to the label, the pop diva has already sold more than 115 million albums worldwide
“Simply put, [Mariah's] ending the '90s with a bang,” says Columbia president Don Ienner. “She deserves the success. She's one of the most consistent artists making records right now. This new project is easily her most diverse and real — and it's off to an amazing start with ‘Heartbreaker.’ ”
That track made history Sept. 29 when it became Carey's 14th No. 1 single on The Billboard Hot 100, a feat rivaled only by the Beatles (with 20) and Elvis Presley (18). That same week, “Heartbreaker” also topped Billboard's Hot R&B Singles & Tracks chart, becoming the artist's sixth single to do so.
Thanks to “Heartbreaker,” Carey has had more No. 1 singles than any other female artist, surpassing both the Supremes (12) and Madonna (11). Released to retail on Sept. 21, the single sold 271,000 copies in the U.S. in its first week, according to SoundScan, marking the biggest first-week singles sales of Carey's career.
Adding to the widespread interest in “Heartbreaker” was an Internet preview of the tune Aug. 16 on Microsoft's MSN WindowsMedia.com. The streaming sample of the song was available for 12 hours and drew more than a half-million hits. Site visitors were also offered an audio greeting from Carey and exclusive new photos.
Interestingly, Rainbow was not initially on Carey's agenda of activities this season. “Heartbreaker” was actually written for the soundtrack to All That Glitters, which will feature the artist in her first lead film role. However, production for the Columbia Pictures vehicle has been postponed until early 2000.
“We're just making sure the script is perfect,” Carey says of the film, adding that Rainbow was partly born out of her desire to not let the track sit on the shelf. “I've written other songs that I'm saving for the movie. But ‘Heartbreaker’ felt current and fresh. I didn't want to wait on putting it out.”
From there, Carey began collaborating with a wide range of producers that includes platinum pop luminaries Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and David Foster, as well as hip-hop renegades DJ Clue, Jermaine Dupri, Damizza, Master P, and She'kspere.
The resulting set, which has guest appearances by 98°, Joe, Da Brat, Missy Elliott, Usher, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg, is a seamless synthesis of the pure-pop sound that distinguished her early efforts and the street-wise rhythms inherent in her more recent recordings.
“I feel like I'm in such a strong, healthy place as an artist,” says Carey. “My music is more honest now than it's ever been. It's so validating that people are responding so well to it.”
Part of what Carey loyalists are responding to is her continued accessibility. On Sept. 21, she promoted the retail release of “Heartbreaker” by getting in a hot-pink van and hitting various spots around New York. In a promotion dubbed “Mariah Takes Manhattan,” the singer visited a variety of local spots, including a McDonald's, a high school, and several retail outlets.
Carey is currently immersed in a two-week spree of international promotion and press that will take her to the U.K. and various other parts of Europe. A trip to Japan is on the agenda for mid-November.
When she returns to the U.S. on Oct. 12, Carey will begin a round of television appearances that will include an hourlong special for Fox-TV that will air in early December. She's also confirmed to perform on NBC's prime-time White House holiday special on Dec. 11. Additionally, several talk-show spots are in the works.
MTV has been actively airing the video accompanying “Heartbreaker,” directed by Brett Ratner, since Aug. 16. The clip was introduced during an episode of the program “Making The Video,” which also offered behind-the-scenes footage of the clip's creation.
Since its MTV premiere, the clip has been among the top 10 most-requested videos on the network's top-rated program, “Total Request Live,” for seven weeks to date. A re-edited version of the “Heartbreaker” video, featuring Da Brat and Elliott, will be serviced to MTV, BET, VH1, and other outlets this Tuesday. The clip showcases DJ Clue and Carey's hip-hop remix of the single, which has been getting airplay at top 40 and R&B radio — along with the album version of the tune and a house music revision by Junior Vasquez in which Carey briefly segues into the disco-era classic “If You Should Ever Be Lonely” by Val Young.
Carey has already completed remixes for the second Rainbow single, the power ballad “Thank God I Found You.” DJ Clue has tweaked the cut with midtempo, R&B-savvy rhythms. The label has yet to set a date for the single's release.
“It's become one of my trademarks to revisit my songs when we do remixes,” Carey says. “To me, it's not good enough to just let someone go into the studio and add some beats or samples to my songs. Inevitably, I wind up rewriting a lot of the song, or rearranging the vocals and melodies. It's a fun exercise in that it allows me to rethink the song and add some new ideas.”
It's via the remixes of her singles that Carey gradually built a stylistic bridge between her squeaky-clean early hits and her more earthy new material. “It gave me a chance to test out new sounds and see how my fans would respond,” she says.
But while she's moved forward in terms of injecting more timely R&B elements into her music, Rainbow shows Carey revisiting an area of her singing that has been less prominent on her last few albums: the remarkably high upper register of her voice.
Once a signature of her performing style, the range has been so criticized for its supposed overuse that Carey “pulled back” on it for several years. “It always remained within the texture of my songs,” she says, “but it was no longer the focal point. And that was fine. You can get too much of a good thing, I guess.”
Rainbow brings those glass-shattering notes back to the forefront of several cuts, including “Heartbreaker” and the rhythm ballad “Bliss.”
“I was in the studio with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and we were working on a track, and there were all of these high notes on it. I was ready to take them off, and they were like, ‘What are you doing? This is what you're known for. Leave it!’ ” Carey recalls. “I thought, ‘Why not? I think of my voice as a gift from God. Why suppress it?’ ”
In the end, Carey views Rainbow as her ultimate chance to “show all of the colors of who I am as an artist. That's where the title comes from. It reflects an album by an artist who has a lot of different ideas — and a lot of different ways of expressing them.”