Raiff Celebrates Mariah's 20 Years In Music: 1993

Posted by Raiff on Tuesday, 18-May-2010, 12:01PM EDT

Ever the workaholic, Mariah was hard at work on her next record as she ushered in 1993. Although the album would not be released until later on in the year, she had something else on her agenda in the meantime. In June, Mariah married Tommy Mottola, the man who signed her to Sony Music.

It was a lavish wedding in New York that rivaled the nuptials of Prince Charles and Princess Diana years earlier, and the guest list boasted famous names such as Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Joel and Barbra Streisand.

After a honeymoon in Hawaii, it was back to work. In August, Mariah was back on the radio with "Dreamlover," a mid-tempo song she had produced with Dave Hall and Walter Afanasieff. It was the perfect summer jam, with its release aptly timed. The accompanying video, filmed in upstate New York, featured Mariah swimming by a waterfall with her dog Jack, hanging out with her dancer friends and up in a hot-air balloon.

Like Mariah's previous lead singles, there was an immediate positive reception from radio. "Dreamlover" debuted just shy of the top 20 (#21) and was #1 within four weeks. The song spent 11 weeks at #1 in airplay (only Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" had matched at this point). With such massive airplay, "Dreamlover" sold consistently, peaking at #2 on the single sales chart and became her first platinum-certified single. "Dreamlover" was Mariah's seventh #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for eight weeks.

The new album was Music Box, a collection of ballads and uptempos on which Mariah again worked with Walter Affanasieff, David Cole and Robert Cliviles. A new song entitled "Do You Think of Me" was included on the "Dreamlover" CD single, though it would not appear on the album. Other producers Mariah began working with on this album, all of whom she would collaborate with again on future releases, were Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Jermaine Dupri, and David Morales.

With Morales, Mariah created a dance remix of "Dreamlover," featuring all new vocals set specifically to Morales' beat. This remix became a club hit and set a precedent for many of her future dance remixes of re-singing the vocals over the producers' tracks and essentially creating a whole new song.

In 1998, Mariah talked about working with David Morales: "David and I really recreate the songs, which is what I think is the best thing about us as a team... What David and I do, is when I do a song with him, I say David just do whatever you think is the newest, craziest... thing and I'll sing whatever over it. I'll rewrite the song over it. That's why we've been successful because I do write - I can alter my songs to accommodate whatever is going on."

Music Box was released on August 31, 1993 and stood at #2 in its second week on the charts. Rolling Stone felt that Mariah's voice on this record featured "a sustained passion that enhances the record's wedding album feel." Time's Christopher John Farley called out two tracks in particular: "The gospel flavored 'Anytime You Need A Friend' demonstrates Carey's vocal power... And the title cut is one of Carey's loveliest songs to date." Music Box gave Mariah her biggest debut on the Billboard 200 and the highest peak since Mariah Carey.

On November 3, Mariah brought her first-ever live show to the masses. The "Music Box" tour launched in Miami, Florida and consisted of six dates, concluding in December at New York's Madison Square Garden. She also performed in Pennsylvania, California, Illinois and Massachusetts. Although the tour was not extensive, it satisfied the demand to see her in markets that were targeted to reach as many people as possible. Mariah's show consisted of all of her singles to date (with the notable exception of "Can't Let Go"), a handful of album tracks such as "Vanishing" and "All In Your Mind," and a cover of the S.O.S. Band's song "Just Be Good To Me."

During this tour, Mariah's first network television special aired on NBC on Thanksgiving night. Titled simply "This is Mariah Carey," the special featured Mariah performing at Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady, New York and had actually been filmed in July, prior to the album's release.

In 1995, Mariah recalled a special moment from filming the show: "The video for 'Hero' was taken from my first television special. And when I sang the song, nobody in the audience had heard it yet, and so I was really kind of nervous about doing it... because I didn't know if people were going to be sitting there saying, 'what's this? I wanna hear, you know, whatever song that was popular.' And it was so well-received by the audience that it was really a great indicator for me about how the song was gonna be received just on a bigger level. When I watch the video and I realize that those people hadn't heard it before, and they were really listening to it for the first time, I think there's something really special about that, that we captured that on film."

The second single from Music Box was "Hero," an inspirational ballad that originally hadn't been intended for Mariah herself to record. Mariah and Walter Affanasieff had originally written the song for Gloria Estefan to sing for the Dustin Hoffman movie of the same name. Sony executives loved the song so much they encouraged Mariah to keep it and record it herself. This decision proved to be a wise one, as this song is identified by many fans worldwide as being the song that introduced them to Mariah and it remains a fan favorite to this day.

On Christmas Day, "Hero" and Music Box both reached #1 on their respective Billboard charts. "Hero" was another massive radio hit, peaking at #1 for 10 weeks, making Mariah the first artist to have two back-to-back #1 airplay hits that spent at least 10 weeks at the top. Although "Hero" only spent 4 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, its single sales actually surpassed those of "Dreamlover" and it returned Mariah to the top of the Billboard 200 for the three biggest sales weeks of the year. Music Box sold a mammoth 505,000 copies on the January 8, 1994 chart and was certified five times platinum two weeks later, making it her fastest selling album to date. Internationally, "Hero" was one of her biggest hits to date and it had pushed the album to sales of 10 million worldwide.

It was no surprise to anyone at this point that Mariah ended 1993 at the top.

MARIAH QUOTES

"I'll just be lying in bed and something will just come to me and I'll start hearing it over and over in my head. And I have to go and record it on my answering machine or just put it down somewhere so I don't forget it." Music Box Special Interview

"I used to love the song 'Without You' when I was a little girl. I remember that it always made me cry and I always thought it was a beautiful song. I heard it again when I was in a restaurant. I was like 'I love this song.' This is such a great song. I haven't heard this song in so long and I just decided I wanted to cover it so we did it." Music Box Special Interview

"I like being able to be in the city when I want and having the freedom to go and stay in the country because just living in the city can get very, very nerve-racking." Music Box Special Interview

"Someone said I never paid any dues. I feel my whole life was struggling, because we were poor. We were alone, we had nothing—no security. I feel I have paid my dues. I've been paying my dues all my life." People

"I always felt like the rug could be pulled out from under me at any time. And coming from a racially mixed background, I always felt like I didn't really fit in anywhere." People

"I was born to sing and I would put up with anything to keep doing this for a living." TV Guide

TV APPEARANCES