Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, author and actress from Huntington, United States. She is associated with pop, contemporary R&B, dance-pop, easy listening, hip hop and Christmas music.

Overview

Carey is known for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, prolific songwriting and frequent use of the whistle register. She is one of the best-selling music artists, with global sales estimated at more than 250 million records. She is inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and receives numerous awards, including five Grammy Awards, ten American Music Awards, nineteen World Music Awards, fourteen Billboard Music Awards and the MTV Video Music Award for the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Time includes her in its 2008 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Rolling Stone ranks her 4th on its list of the greatest singers of all time.

Career

Carey rises to prominence with her debut album Mariah Carey and becomes the first artist whose first five singles reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, beginning with “Vision of Love” and continuing through “Emotions” and the title track of Emotions. She achieves international commercial success with Music Box and Daydream, then incorporates hip hop into her music in the mid-1990s, notably on the “Fantasy” remix featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard. That direction continues on Butterfly and Rainbow. During the 1990s she records a series of US number-one singles and is named Billboard’s Artist of the Decade for that period.

After a commercial decline in the early 2000s, she experiences renewed success with The Emancipation of Mimi. Her recordings include several US Diamond-certified releases. She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist, with nineteen. Billboard ranks “One Sweet Day” and “We Belong Together” as the most successful songs of the 1990s and 2000s respectively.

Christmas work and later releases

Carey is closely associated with Christmas music, particularly the album Merry Christmas. Its lead single, “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, becomes one of the most commercially successful holiday songs and spends multiple weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Her studio albums also include Glitter, Charmbracelet, E=MC², Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, Merry Christmas II You, Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse and Caution.

Other work

Outside music, Carey co-founds the youth programme Camp Mariah in 1994. She appears in films including Glitter, Precious, The Butler and The Lego Batman Movie, and serves as a judge on American Idol in 2013. Her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, reaches number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Recording labels

She is associated with Columbia Records, MonarC and Rye Songs.