Mariah Carey

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Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969) is a singer/songwriter who debuted in 1990 and won the Grammy for Best New Artist that year. She is famous for her wide vocal range and hitting almost inhumanly-high notes in her songs. Initially, she sang ballads and was a rival for Whitney Houston, but after divorcing Tommy Mottola, she began collaborating with rappers, evolving into a more R&B sound.

In 2000, Billboard named her the best selling solo artist of the 90's while the World Music Awards named her the best selling female artist of the millennium.

In 2001, she had some sort of breakdown after her movie Glitter flopped and she took her clothes off on TRL. She was hospitalized for exhaustion and many thought her career to be over, but in 2005 she returned with The Emancipation of Mimi and has been on top of the charts for a good part of the 2000s.

Many publications proclaim her as the best selling female artist of all time, with worldwide record sales of over 200 million.

After feuding with Eminem over whether they were ever together or not, she settled down and got married to Nick Cannon. They divorced in 2016.

See also Quantum Mariah Carey Problem.

Discography:

• 1990: Mariah Carey
• 1991: Emotions
• 1993: Music Box
• 1994: Merry Christmas
• 1995: Daydream
• 1997: Butterfly
• 1999: Rainbow
• 2001: Glitter
• 2002: Charmbracelet
• 2005: The Emancipation of Mimi
• 2008: E=MC²
• 2009: Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel
• 2010: Merry Christmas II You
• 2014: Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse
• 2018: Caution

Selected filmography:

• 2001: Glitter -- Billie Frank
• 2008: Tennessee -- Krystal
• 2009: Precious -- Mrs. Weiss

A longer list is available on Wikipedia.

Mariah Carey provides examples of the following tropes:

• Affair Hair: Jay-Z raps about this in "Heartbreaker".
• Animal Motif: She loves to incorporate butterflies in her photoshoots.
• E=MC Hammer: One of her albums was titled E=MC squared.
• Glurge Addict: Listen to her album names: "Charmbracelet," "Glitter," "Butterfly," "Rainbow"...
• Incredibly Long Note: All the time.
• Intercourse with You: "Touch My Body"
• Melismatic Vocals: Possibly the Queen of this trope who spawned countless imitators...most of them a lot less skilled. Paula Abdul even said that a surefire way of getting kicked off American Idol is to do a Mariah Carey song, since it always involves Hopeless Auditionees screeching their lungs out thinking it'll impress the judges.
• Ms. Fanservice: After her divorce.
• New Sound Album: Butterfly.
  • Actually, all, if not most of her albums, count as this. Sometimes they go back to the previous genre she's already covered, but, surprisingly, she has fresh(ish) material/overall genres with each album release.
• Playing Against Type: Her dressed down in Precious.
• Singing Voice Dissonance: her speaking voice is deep and gravely but her singing voice is very high pitched.
• The Rival:
  • Subverted. Her most famous "rivalry" was with Whitney Houston, but this was created entirely by media hype and the two singers never had any particular beef with each other, even dueting in the song "When You Believe" on the Prince of Egypt soundtrack.
  • It's played straight with Madonna, however. They've had bad blood for almost twenty years.
• Take That: "Clown" off the Charmbracelet album and "Obssessed" off Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel album are both targeted at Eminem, who previously had Take That songs about her.
• Three Minutes of Writhing: Most of her videos.