Mariah Carey Is Named The Most Successful Singer Of All Time

[soulster]

I don't deny that Mariah's been successful. I admired her early work. She's the only solo artist that I know that had their first five singles reach #1 [[Whitney waited two singles before she finally began going #1 and even her record of consecutive #1's has remained unbroken 26 years later). That said, I have to argue that Mariah hasn't always been consistent. 1990-2000, she always had a #1 single and/or top ten single and all of her albums went multi-platinum. Then she went through a rough spell between 2001 and 2004, only to come back between 2005-2007. The latest downwards trend has been between 2008 and now. No one stays on top forever but I just wished she had made smarter decisions. I still argue that Barbra should be considered as such considering she's the only one to have a number one album in six decades.

Her problems started when she divorced Tommy Mottola, left Sony once her contract was up, and signed with Virgin, and called her own shots. When the "Glitter" soundtrack bombed. she had an emotional breakdown. Not that all of those factors were related, but she wanted to go after the contemporary sounds, not realizing that many in her old audience didn't like her more contemporary sound, and the rest had aged and had moved on. The situation was so bad with "Glitter" because the label had such high expectations of her, they paid her to leave the label! She made out nicely, but it was embarrassing and demoralizing. But, she recovered and got a new contract, obviously, but has never regained what she had in the 90s.

The main reason she went after the younger audience is partly because of her marriage to Mottola. He tried to mold her into something she wasn't. She didn't like having to conform to an image, either professionally, or as his wife. And, he was much older than she was. She basically went right from living with her mother to marrying him, so she never had a chance to sow her wild oats, so to speak.

Having said that, give a listen to her latest album. It was a return to form, of sorts, and there is some great stuff in there, especially the opening track, but the rest is unexciting [[to me, anyway). IMO, her best stuff was all on Columbia from the beginning to the end of that contract. But, during that time, and a bit afterward, she achieved a lot of accomplishments, and deserves her rewards for them.

What I didn't like was how she kept using that high-pitched note as her signature. Most of her fans loved it, I hated it. She could ruin her voice doing it. Just look at what happened to Whitney Houston. I mean, the high pitch was fun on her hit single "Emotions", but it was overdone. It got to the point where all she had to do was go out in front of an audience and wail, and get a standing applause.