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Mariah Carey during a break in shooting of the "I Still Believe" (1999) music video.
Background information
Origin	Huntington, New York, United States
Years active	1990–present

Mariah Carey (born March 27 1970) is an American R&B and pop singer, songwriter, record producer and occasional actress who has been noted for her five-octave vocal range and her capabilities in the whistle register. She made her debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. After marrying Mottola in 1993, hits such as "Hero", "All I Want for Christmas Is You" and "One Sweet Day" consolidated her position as one of Columbia's most successful acts.

Carey is the best-selling artist of the 1990s in the U.S. according to Billboard magazine, and she has received a record number of World Music Awards for her commercial accomplishments. After separating from Mottola in 1997, Carey continued to release hit singles such as "Honey" and "Heartbreaker" through Columbia, though problems between her and label executives led her to part ways with them in 2001. Carey's popularity was in decline when she arranged a lucrative deal with Virgin Records shortly after, but she was dropped by Virgin the following year after a highly-publicised physical breakdown and the notoriously poor reception of Glitter, her film and soundtrack project.

Carey later signed with Island Def Jam Records, but records released during this period proved unprofitable. She returned to the forefront of popular music in 2005 with the success of her tenth studio album, and tied herself with Elvis Presley for the most U.S. number-one hits by a solo artist. Carey is well-known for the prominence of melisma in her singing style, which is a continuing source of criticism of her work by the mainstream media. MTV named Carey's voice "the greatest in music" in 2003, and she was declared "the number-one selling female artist in the history of recorded music" by the IFPI.

Biography and music career

Early life and discovery

Carey was born in Huntington, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia Hickey, a former opera singer and voice coach of Irish American Roman Catholic extraction, and Alfred Roy Carey (born Núñez), an aeronautical engineer of mixed African American and Hispanic-Venezuelan descent. She was named after the song "They Call the Wind Maria", from the musical Paint Your Wagon. Carey's older brother Morgan suffered from cerebral palsy, while her older sister Alison developed a drug addiction and became a prostitute. As a multiracial family, the Carey household was met with racial slurs, hostility, and sometimes violence, causing the family to move frequently around the New York and Rhode Island areas. The strain on the family led to the divorce of Carey's parents when she was three years old. Carey had little contact with her father, and her mother worked several jobs to support the family.

Spending much of her time at home alone, Carey turned to music as an outlet. She began singing at around the age of three, and first performed in public during elementary school. Her mother and the members of her opera company were impressed with her talents, and by junior high school she was writing her own songs. Carey attended and graduated from Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, although she was frequently absent due to her popularity as a demo singer for several Long Island recording studios. Carey's moderate renown within the Huntington music scene gave her opportunities to work with musicians such as Gavin Christopher and Ben Margulies, with whom Carey would co-write material on her demo tape. After moving to New York City, she worked numerous part-time jobs to pay the rent and completed five hundred hours of beauty school. Eventually, she successfully auditioned for a role as a backup singer for Brenda K. Starr.

In 1988, Carey met Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola at a party, where Starr gave him Carey's demo tape. Mottola played the tape while leaving the party and was very impressed by what he heard. He returned to the party to find Carey, but she had already left. Nevertheless, Mottola tracked her down and signed her to a recording contract. This Cinderella-like story became part of the standard publicity surrounding Carey's entrance into the industry.

1990–1992: Early commercial success

Carey's professional music career began with the release of her eponymous debut album, Mariah Carey, in 1990. Carey co-wrote all of the compositions on the album and would continue to co-write nearly all of her material for the rest of her career, but expressed dissatisfaction with the contributions of producers such as Ric Wake and Rhett Lawrence to the album. It was backed by substantial promotion and ascended to number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart a year after its release, where it remained for eleven weeks. It produced four number-one singles, making Carey a star in the United States. Elsewhere, however, the album's success was limited. Critics rated Carey's debut highly, and in 1991 she won Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her debut single "Vision of Love".

[[:Image:IBT.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Carey performing on MTV Unplugged in 1992.]]

Emotions, Carey's second album, was conceived as a homage to Motown soul music (see Motown Sound) and saw Carey working with Walter Afanasieff and the dance music group C&C Music Factory. It was released soon after her debut album in the fall of 1991, but was neither critically nor commercially as successful; Rolling Stone magazine described Emotions as "more of the same, with less interesting material...pop-psych love songs played with airless, intimidating expertise". Its first single, the title track "Emotions", gave Carey the distinction of being the only recording act in history to have their first five singles reach number-one on the U.S. Hot 100 chart, though the album's follow-up singles failed to maintain this feat. Carey had been lobbying for the ability to produce her own songs, and beginning with Emotions she would co-produce most of her material. "I didn't want [Emotions] to be somebody else's vision of me", she said. "There's more of me on this album". Carey would also begin writing and producing for other artists, such as Penny Ford and Daryl Hall, within the coming year.

Although she had fulfilled several concert dates to support her debut album, Carey had not embarked on any major public tours. Her first widely-seen concert appearance was on the television show MTV Unplugged in May 1992, and she said she felt that her performance proved her vocal abilities were not, as some had previously speculated, simulated using studio techniques. In addition to acoustic versions of some of her earlier songs, Carey premiered a cover of The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" on the special with back-up singer Trey Lorenz. Released as a single, the duet became Carey's sixth number-one hit in the U.S. and led to a record deal for Lorenz, whose debut album Carey produced. Due to strong ratings for the Unplugged television special, the concert's setlist was released on the EP MTV Unplugged, which Entertainment Weekly called "the strongest, most genuinely musical record she has ever made...Did this live performance help her take her first steps toward growing up?".

1993–1996: Worldwide popularity

Carey and Tommy Mottola had become romantically involved during the recording of her debut album, and in June 1993 they were married in Manhattan. Her third studio album, Music Box, was released later that year, and became her most successful album worldwide. It yielded her first UK number-one hit with a cover of Badfinger's "Without You", as well as the U.S. number-one singles "Dreamlover" and "Hero". Billboard magazine proclaimed the album as "heart-piercing...easily the most elemental of Carey's releases, her vocal eurythmics in natural sync with the songs", though Carey's attempt at a mellower work than her previous efforts was lamented by Christopher John Farley of Time magazine: "[Music Box] seems perfunctory and almost passionless...Carey could be a pop-soul great; instead she has once again settled for Salieri-like mediocrity". A subsequent U.S. tour was slated by most critics. Carey said in a Vogue interview: "As soon as you have a big success, a lot of people don't like that. There's nothing I can do about it. All I can do is make music I believe in".

[[:Image:OSD.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Carey and Boyz II Men recording "One Sweet Day" (1995), one of Carey's most successful singles.]]

Following a hit duet with Luther Vandross of Diana Ross' "Endless Love", Carey released the holiday album Merry Christmas in late 1994. It contained both cover material and original compositions, among them "All I Want for Christmas Is You". The single became Carey's first number-one hit in Japan, and in subsequent years would emerge as her most perenially popular song on U.S. radio. Critical reception of Merry Christmas was mixed, with All Music Guide dismissing it as an "otherwise vanilla set...Pretensions to high opera on 'O Holy Night' and a horrid danceclub take on 'Joy to the World'". The album drew greater approval from the public, becoming one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time.

In 1995 Carey released Daydream, which combined the pop sensibilities of Music Box with downbeat R&B and hip hop influences. Columbia reportedly reacted negatively to Carey's intentions for the album: "Everybody was like 'What, are you crazy?'", she explained. "They're very nervous about breaking the formula". The album became her largest-selling LP in the U.S., and its singles achieved similar success: "Fantasy" became only the second single to debut at number-one in the U.S. and spent twelve weeks at number one in Canada, "One Sweet Day" (a duet with Boyz II Men) spent a still-record sixteen weeks at number one in the U.S., and "Always Be My Baby" (co-produced by Jermaine Dupri) topped the Hot 100's 1996 year-end airplay chart. Daydream generated career-best reviews for Carey and was named one of 1995's best albums by publications such as the New York Times, who wrote that its "best cuts bring pop candy-making to a new peak of textural refinement" and noted that Carey's songwriting "has taken a leap forward, becoming more relaxed, sexier and less reliant on thudding cliches". Sales of the album were augmented by a highly profitable world tour, and it received six Grammy nominations.

1997–2000: Independence and new image

Carey and Mottola separated in late 1996. Although she had often projected the image of a happy marriage to the public, in reality she had felt emotionally and psychologically abused by Mottola, whom she often described as controlling. They publicly announced their separation in 1997, and their divorce became final the following year. Carey hired a new attorney and manager soon after the separation, as well as an publicist independent of Columbia. She became a major songwriter and producer for other artists during this period, contributing to the debut albums of Allure, 7 Mile and Blaque through her short-lived Crave Records imprint.

[[:Image:Honey.jpg|left|thumb|200px|The lyrics and music video for "Honey" (1997) presented a more overtly sexual image of Carey than had been previously seen.]]

Carey's 1997 album Butterfly was preceded by the number-one single "Honey", the lyrics and music video for which presented a more overtly sexual image of her than had been previously seen. Carey stated that Butterfly marked the point that she attained full creative control over her music, which continued to move in an R&B/hip hop direction with material co-written and produced by rappers such as Sean Combs and Missy Elliott. She added: "I don't think it's that much of a departure from what I've done in the past...It's not like I went psycho and thought I was going to be a rapper. Personally, this album is about doing whatever the hell I wanted to do". Reviews were almost uniformly positive: J.R. Reynolds said Butterfly "pushes the envelope", a move that he thought "may prove disconcerting to more conservative fans", but Reynolds still praised the album as "a welcome change". The Los Angeles Times wrote: "[Butterfly] is easily the most personal, confessional-sounding record she's ever done...Carey-bashing just might become a thing of the past". The album was a commercial success, and "My All" (her thirteenth Hot 100 number-one hit) gave her the record for the most U.S. number-ones by a female artist. Towards the turn of the millennium Carey became a prominent figure in hip hop music, and collaborated with both new and established rappers. She also wrote songs for the soundtracks to the films Men in Black (1997) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), and began to develop her own film/soundtrack project, All That Glitters.

During the production of Butterfly, Carey began a romance with New York Yankees baseball player Derek Jeter, who was also biracial. Their relationship ended in 1998, with both parties citing media interference as the reason for the split. That year saw the release of the album #1's, a collection of her U.S. number-one singles up to that point. Carey recorded new material for the album as a way of rewarding her fans, and it also included "When You Believe", a duet with Whitney Houston from the soundtrack to The Prince of Egypt that won an Academy Award for Best Song. #1's sold above expectations, but a review of the set in New Musical Express magazine labelled Carey "a purveyor of saccharine bilge like 'Hero', whose message seems wholesome enough: that if you vacate your mind of all intelligent thought, flutter your eyelashes and wish hard, sweet babies and honey will follow". Also that year she appeared on the first televised VH1 Divas benefit concert program with singers such as Aretha Franklin and Shania Twain, though Carey's alleged prima donna behavior had already led many to consider her a diva. By the following year, she had begun a relationship with singer Luis Miguel.

Rainbow, Carey's sixth studio album, was released in 1999. It was again comprised of more R&B/hip hop-oriented songs, many of them co-created by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and featuring numerous guest artists. Both "Heartbreaker" and "Thank God I Found You" — the former featuring Jay-Z, the latter featuring Joe and boyband 98 Degrees — reached number one in the U.S., and the success of the former made Carey the only act to have a number-one hit in each year of the 1990s. Reception from the media was generally enthusiastic with caveats, the one significant criticism being that the tracks were too alike. The Sunday Herald said that the album "sees her impressively tottering between soul ballads and collaborations with R&B heavyweights like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Usher...It's a polished collection of pop-soul". Similar sentiments were echoed in Vibe magazine, who wrote "She pulls out all stops...Rainbow will garner even more adoration", but despite this it became Carey's lowest-selling LP up to that point. A further sign of decline appeared when the double A-side "Crybaby"/"Can't Take That Away" (the final U.S. release from Rainbow) became her first single to peak outside of the top twenty. Carey publicly accused Sony of underpromoting the single: "the political situation in my professional career is not positive...I'm getting a lot of negative feedback from certain corporate people", she wrote on her official website.

2001–2004: Personal and professional struggles

After becoming the recipient of Billboard's Artist of the Decade Award (see Billboard Music Awards) and the World Music Award for the World's Best-Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, Carey finally ended her contract with Columbia and signed a five-album deal with EMI's Virgin Records worth a reported US$80 million. Just a few months later in July 2001, it was widely reported that Carey had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She had left voicemail messages on her website (which were quickly removed) to her fans complaining of being overworked, and her relationship with Luis Miguel was ending. Carey made a notorious appearance on MTV's Total Request Live, where she handed out popsicles to the teen-aged audience and began what some later described as a "strip tease". By the month's end Carey had checked into a psychiatric hospital, and her publicist announced that she would be taking a break from public appearances.

[[:Image:NTFS.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A scene from Carey's poorly-received star vehicle Glitter (2001).]]

Her much delayed semi-autobiographical film, titled Glitter, was panned by most critics upon its release and became a box office failure (see below). Its soundtrack album Glitter, which had been inspired by music from the 1980s, generated her worst showing to date on the U.S. charts. Kevin C. Johnson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch dismissed the album as "an absolute mess that'll go down as an annoying blemish on a career that, while not always critically heralded, was at least nearly consistently successful", while Blender magazine opined "After years of trading her signature flourishes for a radio-ready purr, [Carey]'s left with almost no presence at all". Lead single "Loverboy" reached number two on the Hot 100 thanks to a price cut, but the album's follow-up singles failed to chart.

Shortly after the disastrous release of Glitter, Columbia released a second compilation album, the two-CD Greatest Hits. In early 2002, Virgin decided to drop Carey from their roster and they bought out her contract for $28 million, as an addition to the $21 million paid the previous year when signing, giving her another round of bad publicity. Later that year, she signed a three-album contract with Island Records' Def Jam. To add further to Carey's emotional burdens, her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died that summer.

Following a well-received supporting role in the independent film WiseGirls (see below), Carey released a new album titled Charmbracelet, which she said marked "a new lease on life" for her. Sales of Charmbracelet were lukewarm, and the quality of Carey's vocals came under severe criticism. The Boston Globe declared the album as "the worst of her career, revealing a voice no longer capable of either gravity-defying gymnastics or soft coos", and Barry Walters of Rolling Stone commented: "Carey needs bold songs that help her use the power and range for which she is famous. Charmbracelet is like a stream of watercolors that bleed into a puddle of brown". Singles such as "Through the Rain" failed both on the charts and with pop radio, whose playlists had become less open to maturing "diva" stylists such as Carey, Whitney Houston and Céline Dion.

"I Know What You Want", Carey's 2003 duet with rapper Busta Rhymes, fared considerably better and reached the top five in the U.S. Columbia later included it on the remix collection The Remixes, which failed to find an audience and became Carey's lowest-selling album. That year, she was awarded the "Diamond Award" by the World Music Awards show in honour of selling over 150 million albums worldwide. She was featured on rapper Jadakiss' single "U Make Me Wanna" in 2004, which reached the top ten of Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart.

2005–present: Return to prominence

[[:Image:Dont4getaboutus.jpeg|left|thumb|200px|According to Billboard magazine, "Don't Forget About Us" (2005) has tied Carey with Elvis Presley for the most U.S. number-one singles by a solo recording artist.]]

Carey's ninth studio album, The Emancipation of Mimi, was released in 2005 and contained elements of hip hop, R&B, soul and dance music. Carey, who collaborated with producers such as The Neptunes and Kanye West, said it was "very much like a party record...the process of putting on makeup and getting ready to go out...I wanted to make a record that was reflective of that". Mimi became the year's best-selling album in the U.S. and won three Grammy Awards, including one for Best Contemporary R&B Album. Reviews of the album were some of Carey's most favourable in years; a critic for The Guardian defined it as "a tough cookie of an album" and "cool, focused and urban...the first Mariah Carey tunes in years I wouldn't have to be paid to listen to again". The single "We Belong Together" was the biggest hit of 2005 and Carey's career: it occupied the top of the U.S. charts for fourteen weeks (her longest run at the top as a solo artist) and received heavy radio airplay across the world. "Don't Forget About Us" became Carey's seventeenth number-one in the U.S., tying her with Elvis Presley for the most number-ones by a solo artist according to Billboard magazine's revised methodology (their own statician, however, credits Presley with an eighteenth). By this count Carey is behind only The Beatles, who are currently credited with twenty number-one singles.

Producer Jermaine Dupri, Carey's frequent collaborator, reported in early 2006 that he had arranged for her to record a duet with fellow R&B singer Janet Jackson.

Acting career

Carey made her film debut as an opera singer and one of the former girlfriends of Jimmie (Chris O'Donnell) in The Bachelor (1999), a romantic comedy starring O'Donnell and Renée Zellweger. Critical response to Carey's cameo appearance was lukewarm, with Paul Tatara from CNN derisively referring to Carey's casting as a talentless diva as "letter-perfect".

Carey's first starring role was in Glitter, a 2001 film that had been in development as a vehicle for Carey since 1997. In it she played Billie Frank, a struggling singer and songwriter who breaks into the music industry after she meets DJ Julian Dice (Max Beesley). Reviews were scathing; while Roger Ebert gave mild praise for Carey's performance, saying, "Her acting ranges from dutiful flirtatiousness to intense sincerity", most other critics panned it: Stephanie Zacharek called Carey "numbingly bland" in her role, and Michael Atkinson observed, "when she tries for an emotion—any emotion—she looks as if she's lost her car keys". Glitter was a box office failure, and Carey earned a Razzie Award for her role. She later said that the film "started out as a concept with substance, but it ended up being geared to 10-year-olds. It lost a lot of grit...I kind of got in over my head".

[[:Image:Carey Walters Sorvino in WiseGirls.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Carey, with Melora Walters and Mira Sorvino, in WiseGirls (2002).]]

Carey next appeared co-starring with Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters as a tough-talking waitress in the independent film WiseGirls, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002. Critics who saw the film lauded Carey for her efforts: Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter predicted "Those scathing notices for Glitter will be a forgotten memory for the singer once people warm up to Raychel", and Roger Freidman, referring to her as "a Thelma Ritter for the new millennium", said "her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs". WiseGirls producer Anthony Esposito cast Carey in another film, The Sweet Science, about an unknown but talented boxer who is recruited by a determined female boxing manager. The project never entered production, and WiseGirls went straight-to-cable in the United States.

Carey became one of several musicians to make cameo appearances in the independently-produced Damon Dash films Death of a Dynasty (2003) and State Property 2 (2005). Her small-screen work has been more limited: she played a legal client of the title character in Ally McBeal in January 2002, and appeared in an episode of the animated children's series The Proud Family in October 2003.

Style and influence

She has said that she was influenced by soul and R&B musicians including Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Al Green. Also, gospel singers such as the Clark Sisters, Shirley Caesar and Edwin Hawkins. And jazz. Carey has also expressed appreciation for music of the 1980s and has recorded covers of songs by Journey, Def Leppard and Prince, who consulted on the Glitter soundtrack. Rappers such as Sugarhill Gang, Eric B. & Rakim, the Wu-Tang Clan, Notorious B.I.G. and Mobb Deep.

Love is the subject of the majority of Carey's lyrics, although she has occasionally written about other themes: racism and poverty in "There's Got to Be a Way", death in "One Sweet Day", and the celebration of life in "Through the Rain". She has said that much of her work is partly autobiographical. Time magazine wrote: "If only Mariah Carey's music had the drama of her life. Her songs are often sugary and artificial – NutraSweet soul. But her life has passion and conflict".

Carey can cover all the notes from the alto vocal range leading to those of a coloratura soprano, and her vocal trademark is her ability to sing in the whistle register. She has cited Minnie Riperton as the greatest influence on her singing technique, and from a very early age she would often attempt to emulate Riperton's high notes, to increasing degrees of success as her vocal range expanded. Carey hit a G#7 note during a performance of "Emotions" at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, reportedly one of the highest notes in the history of recorded music. According to most sources Carey has a five-octave vocal range, though some credit her with six, seven or even eight octaves. It has been suggested that Carey's publicists falsely claimed this at the start of her career to generate additional anticipation for the release of her debut album.

Carey's voice has come under considerable scrutiny from some critics who believe that she does not effectively communicate the message of her songs. Rolling Stone, in a negative review of the album Emotions, wrote "Carey has a remarkable vocal gift, but to date, unfortunately, her singing has been far more impressive than expressive...at full speed her range is so superhuman that each excessive note erodes the believability of the lyric she is singing". The New York Daily News said that Carey's singing "is ultimately what does her in. For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening...Does having a great voice automatically make you a great singer? Hardly". In comparison, criticisms were levelled at what Carey herself described as "breathy" vocals in some of her later songs on albums such as Charmbracelet. Carey said "Some people are of the opinion that if you have a big voice you should use it all the time...[but] I don't want to hear someone scream at me all the time".

Carey's voice, which is a continual subject of both positive and negative debate, was voted as the greatest voice in music in MTV and Blender magazine's countdown of "The 22 Greatest Voices in Music". Carey said of the poll: "what it really means is voice of the MTV generation. Of course, it's an enormous compliment, but I don't feel that way about myself".

[[:Image:9059 lrg.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Cover of Butterfly Melodies (2005), a tribute album to Carey performed on the piano.]]

Carey's music makes great use of electronic instruments such as drum machines, synthesizers and keyboards. Many of her songs contain piano music, and as a child she was given piano lessons for a short time. Carey prefers to work with a pianist when composing her material, and she told Larry King that she cannot read sheet music. However, she has said that she finds it easier to experiment with faster and less conventional melodies and chord progressions for her songs using this technique. Carey has voiced the opinion that she has often found it difficult to receive credit for her work, "particularly (since I am) not sitting behind a piano or a guitar. My voice is my instrument; it always has been". Butterfly Melodies, a tribute album containing piano renditions of some of Carey's songs, was released by Vitamin Records in 2005.

Early in her recording career Carey began commissioning remixes of her material, and during the late-1990s she helped spearhead the practise of recording entirely new vocals for remixes. House DJ David Morales has collaborated with Carey several times, starting with "Dreamlover" (1993), which popularised the the tradition of remixing pop songs into house records and was named one of the greatest dance songs of all time by Slant magazine. From "Fantasy" (1995) onward, Carey would enlist both hip hop and house producers to re-imagine her album recordings. The Morales-produced remix of "Fantasy" won the National Dance Music Award for Dance Record of the Year in 1996, while a second remix, produced by Sean Combs and featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard, has been credited with initiating the trend of the pop/hip hop collaboration which has continued into the 2000s with singles by artists such as Beyoncé Knowles and Ashanti. In addition, both remixes of "Fantasy" were grouped among Carey's greatest recordings in a 2005 Entertainment Weekly article. Carey said "It was something that I wanted to do. It wasn't even something that the label said, 'Hey, we need you to go in and do a remix.' I was like, 'When are we doing the remix?'" Billboard magazine in 1996 said Carey was "among today's more beloved dance-floor divas...she never fails to heed the call of this industry sector, even though she clearly doesn't have to. As Carey racks up deserved accolades for her theatrical way with a pop ballad, it is pretty nifty to also hear her soulfully throw down an edgy house beat". Carey has eleven number-one hits on the U.S. Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, and songs such as "I Still Believe" and "It's Like That" have achieved greater popularity as remixes than in their original forms.

Other activities

Carey is a philanthropist who has donated both time and millions of dollars to organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the National Adoption Center, VH1's Save the Music Foundation, and the Fresh Air Fund among many others. Carey is well-known nationally for her work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in granting the wishes of the terminally ill Caleb Boulter, who called her "a very real person who overflows with compassion and love for others". As part of her involvement with the Fresh Air Fund, she is the co-founder of a camp located in Fishkill, New York that enables inner-city youth to embrace the arts, be introduced to career opportunities, and build self-esteem. The camp was named Camp Mariah in honour of Carey's work with the Fresh Air Fund, and she received a Congressional Award titled the Horizon Award for her charity work on behalf of children.

Carey performed as part of the America: A Tribute to Heroes nationally televised fundraiser in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and in December 2001 she hosted the CBS television special At Home for the Holidays with Mariah Carey, which documented real-life stories of adopted children and foster families. In July 2005, Carey performed for Live 8 at the Live 8 concert, London with the African Children's Choir. She was also a participant in the Shelter from the Storm telethon following Hurricane Katrina's damage to the U.S. Gulf Coast later that year.

In early 2006, Carey launched a jewellery and accessories line aimed at teenagers, "Glamorized", in U.S. Claire's and Icing stores. She has also expressed a desire to release a perfume.

Discography

Albums

Further information: [[:Mariah Carey albums discography]]

1. Mariah Carey (1990)
2. Emotions (1991)
3. MTV Unplugged (1992)
4. Music Box (1993)
5. Merry Christmas (1994)
6. Daydream (1995)
7. Butterfly (1997)
8. #1's (1998)
9. Rainbow (1999)
10. Glitter (2001)
11. Greatest Hits (2001)
12. Charmbracelet (2002)
13. The Remixes (2003)
14. The Emancipation of Mimi (2005)

Number-one singles

The following singles reached number one in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and/or Japan. For a complete discography of Carey's singles, see Mariah Carey singles discography.

Single	U.S. #1	UK #1	CAN #1	AUS #1	JPN #1
"Vision of Love" (1990)	1st		1st
"Love Takes Time" (1990)	2nd		2nd
"Someday" (1991)	3rd
"I Don't Wanna Cry" (1991)	4th
"Emotions" (1991)	5th
"I'll Be There" (1992) (featuring Trey Lorenz)	6th		3rd
"Dreamlover" (1993)	7th		4th
"Hero" (1993)	8th
"Without You" (1994)		1st
"All I Want for Christmas Is You" (1994)					1st
"Fantasy" (1995)	9th		5th	1st	2nd
"One Sweet Day" (1995) (Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men)	10th
"Always Be My Baby" (1996)	11th
"Honey" (1997)	12th				3rd
"My All" (1998)	13th
"When You Believe" (1998) (Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston)					4th
"Heartbreaker" (1999) (featuring Jay-Z)	14th		6th		5th
"Thank God I Found You" (2000) (featuring Joe and 98 Degrees)	15th
"Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" (2000) (Mariah Carey & Westlife)		2nd
"Loverboy" (2001) (featuring Cameo)					6th
"It's Like That" (2005)					7th
"We Belong Together" (2005)	16th			2nd
"Don't Forget About Us" (2005)	17th				8th

See also

• List of songs by Mariah Carey
• List of unreleased songs by Mariah Carey
• Sales and charts achievements for Mariah Carey
• World sales and certifications for Mariah Carey
• List of Mariah Carey awards
• Grammy Awards and nominations for Mariah Carey
• List of music videos for Mariah Carey singles
• Mariah Carey DVDs and videos
• List of best-selling music artists
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart

References

• Shapiro, Marc. Mariah Carey (2001). UK: ECW Press, Canada. ISBN 1550224441 (UK).
• Mariah Carey - Credits. All Music Guide. Retrieved November 18, 2005.
• U.S. charts and sales compiled by Billboard magazine (http://www.billboard.com) and Nielsen SoundScan (http://www.soundscan.com/).
• UK charts compiled by The Official UK Charts Company (http://www.theofficialcharts.com/).
• Canadian charts compiled by Jam Canoe (http://jam.canoe.ca/) and Members.aol.com (http://members.aol.com/SKrebs/chartdata/Canada.htm).
• Australian charts compiled by the Australian Recording Industry Association (http://www.aria.com.au/).
• Japanese charts compiled by Oricon (http://www.oricon.co.jp/) and Members.aol.com (http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/Tokio.htm).
• Bedell, Geraldine. Something about Mariah. The Observer. November 17, 2002. Retrieved November 14, 2005.
• Episode of People in the News. CNN. Aired April 30, 2005. Transcript retrieved November 18, 2005.
• Episode of Larry King Live. CNN. Aired December 19, 2002. Transcript retrieved November 18, 2005.
• Miss Mariah. Cosmopolitan. December 1997. Retrieved November 18, 2005.
• Friedman, Roger. Mariah Melts Down; Madonna Disappoints. FOX News. July 26, 2001. Retrieved December 9, 2005. (breakdown)
• Moss, Corey. Despite 'Glitter,' Mariah Carey's Movie Career Could Still Sparkle. MTV.com. February 20, 2002. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (WiseGirls)
• [3] (charity work)
• Mariah Carey Makes A Sick Boy's Dreams Come True. Popdirt.com. December 23, 2002. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Caleb Boulter)
• Fresh Air Fund Summer Programs: Summer Camping. Fresh Air Fund. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Camp Mariah)
• Mariah Carey To Receive Congressional Award For Charity Efforts. MTV.com. April 13, 1999. Retrieved December 10, 2005. (Horizon Award)
• Duffy, Mike. Mariah Carey leads heartfelt holiday special to promote adoption. Detroit Free Press. December 21, 2001. Retrieved from the Wayback Machine on December 10, 2005. (At Home for the Holidays)

External links

• MariahCarey.com — official website.
• Mariah Carey at All Music Guide.
• Mariah Carey at Rock on the Net.
• Mariah Carey at IMDb.
• Template:Tvtome person.
• Snopes articles debunking various Carey-related legends:

• Jordan
• Vocal range
• Starving kids

• Mariah Carey Clips of live preformances, videos and interviews.

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