Raiff Celebrates Mariah's 20 Years in Music: 1994

Posted by Raiff on Wednesday, 19-May-2010, 12:01PM EDT

1994 would prove to be another busy and successful year for Mariah. Her album Music Box and current single "Hero" were both at the top of the charts.

The next release from the record was "Without You," a cover of a song that Harry Nilsson had made popular in 1972. The single was released at the end of January, and entered the top ten after five weeks. Although "Without You" would not reach number one (peaking at #3 in March), it enjoyed a long run on the charts, remaining in the top ten until May.

"Without You" became a massive worldwide hit, reaching at least the top three in every major market in the world. The album followed suit and ascended to the top of the charts everywhere (it spent another three weeks at #1 in the US during the run of "Without You"). It even affected her back catalog in some markets. After the run of "Without You," Music Box had doubled its worldwide sales and pushed Mariah to sales of more than 55 million albums and singles worldwide.

The B-side to the "Without You" single was "Never Forget You," the ballad Mariah co-produced with Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds. The CD-single featured a remix by Jermaine Dupri, who has produced many hits with Mariah since then and still works with her to this day. Although "Never Forget You" received decent airplay, no music video was filmed for it.

Right on the heels of "Without You" was the fourth and final single, "Anytime You Need A Friend." Like "Hero," this was an inspirational ballad, but with a gospel feel. Two CD singles were released this time around: One featuring a re-sung soul remix, and the other featuring re-sung dance remixes that Mariah produced with David Cole & Robert Cliviles. The dance remix was accompanied by its own music video, which featured outtakes from the album version's video, including footage of Mariah acting silly with her backup singers.

Sadly, this collaboration marked the last time Mariah worked with Cole & Clivilles, as David Cole passed away after complications with AIDS in 1995. "Anytime You Need A Friend" peaked at #12 on the Hot 100 at the end of June.

Though no further singles were issued from Music Box, Mariah would not stay off the charts for long. In the summer of 1994, she recorded a duet with Luther Vandross. For Vandross' classics album entitled Songs, they covered "Endless Love," which was made famous by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross in 1981. A music video was filmed depicting the two in the studio recording the song. They would perform the song live a handful of times, including on "Top of The Pops" (UK), "Wetten, dass..?" (Germany) and during one of Vandross' concerts at Royal Albert Hall. "Endless Love" reached #2 on the Hot 100 in October.

Determined to keep the momentum going, but not yet ready for a new studio album, Mariah released a holiday album entitled Merry Christmas. The record featured Christmas classics such as "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World," as well as three brand-new Mariah Carey compositions.

Going into the recording of her holiday collection, Mariah knew she wanted to do a few things. Mariah typically writes the songs she sings, but she recognized that writing original holiday songs is a risky proposition. As she told Billboard, "It was definitely a priority for me to write at least a few new songs, but for the most part, people really want to hear the standards at Christmas." Mariah also knew she wanted a more gospel feel for the project, so she brought in Loris Holland to co-produce a few tracks and to play the Hammond B-3 organ. Mariah's grandmother had taken her to church as a child, and Merry Christmas allowed her to combine her love for the holidays with her gospel roots.

Mariah has said she was more free with her vocals on this project and didn't worry about getting every line perfect. Critics took notice of this freedom and spirit immediately. Billboard said her "voice is a malleable marvel of emotion and range," and Steve Morse of The Boston Globe wrote that the holiday collection "features the most unbridled singing of her career," Considine noted that "the album's real strength is the conviction she brings" to songs that could be corny, and Jeremy Helliger of People went as far as to say, "crooning Christmas carols seems to be [Mariah's] calling." Barry Schwarts of Stylus calls the songs and performances "undeniably brilliant."

While Mariah's singing was deservedly praised, it is also notable that some of the new songs Mariah wrote for the collection have enjoyed their own success. The three original holiday songs Mariah wrote for the album are "All I Want For Christmas Is You," "Miss You Most (At Christmastime)," and "Jesus Born On This Day." While "Jesus Born On This Day" has gained some notoriety in Christian and gospel circles (having been covered by Avalon, Norman Hutchins, Morris Chapman, and Clay Aiken), it is "All I Want For Christmas Is You" that has become a holiday season standard. As Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in New Yorker, with the "charming" song, Mariah "co-wrote one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon." Chuck Klosterman went so far as to write in Spin that "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is, "Definitely the best Christmas song since 'Christmas Wrapping' (the Waitresses), possibly the best Christmas song since 'Jesus Christ' (Big Star), and arguably the best Christmas song since 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' (various artists)."

Acts ranging from My Chemical Romance to Shania Twain and even The Cheetah Girls have covered the track, further showing its mass appeal. Film director Richard Curtis made sure to use "All I Want For Christmas Is You" in his film Love Actually because he said it puts him in a good mood when he hears it. Canoe pointed out, "It's a modern Christmas classic that's infiltrated pop culture as much as any of the 'classic' Christmas carols."

This sort of praise came as a surprise to Mariah. As she told Marie Claire, "Nothing against Casio, but

The lead single "All I Want For Christmas Is You" became a colossal hit worldwide. In Japan, it is arguably the biggest hit by an international artist of all time. In the UK, it's Mariah's best selling single, despite only reaching #2 on the charts. Although the song didn't chart in the US initially, due to not having a commercial single available, it made it to #12 on the airplay charts.

Even though "All I Want For Christmas Is You" had great initial stats, what's most impressive about the song on the charts is its recurrent airplay and catalog single sales/parent album sales around the world. In the US, "All I Want For Christmas Is You" re-enters the top 40 in airplay almost every holiday season and sells a significant amount of downloads (around 200,000 per year on average). In the UK, "All I Want For Christmas Is You" re-entered all the way to #4 on the charts (since their inclusion of allowing songs to re-enter the official singles charts) in 2007, due to strong catalog single sales. As for the album, Merry Christmas has gone from sales of 8 million worldwide (after its initial holiday season) to sales of 12 million worldwide making it her best catalog seller ever.

Even as she promoted Merry Christmas, Mariah was already looking to the year ahead, writing and recording songs for her next album. Though she did not divulge too many details, she told one interviewer that she had recorded with Jermaine Dupri, known at the time for his production work with Kris Kross and Da Brat, whom she had previously collaborated with in 1993 on the "Never Forget You" remix.

1994 was not just a big year for Mariah commercially, but philanthropically as well. Under the guidance of the Fresh Air Fund, Mariah opened a career awareness camp in upstate New York called Camp Mariah. "I had the idea to start a summer camp to try to make a difference in the lives of city kids," she told Parade.. "Then, when I looked into it, I heard about the Fresh Air Fund. They've been around since 1877, and they were doing exactly what I wanted to do...Even though the organization has been around for so long, it really has a grasp of what kids need today." Camp Mariah has made a difference in the lives of thousands of inner-city youths to this day.

MARIAH QUOTES

"I try to hold on to the feelings that got me here. If all of a sudden you start thinking that you are untouchable and you're great and everything you do is amazing–just living high–then you are not a real person any more... I just try to remember the person that was struggling to get to this point and never let go of that." Jet

"I like to try and give positive messages, if I can in my music, whenever I can... I do this because there is a lot of negativity out there and lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and I don't think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time." Jet

"All they see is from 1990 till 1993. They don't see what took place before that—my whole life and the struggles that I went through in life... to fulfill this dream of making music and being a singer. My dream was the only thing I ever had to hold on to and my mother taught me to believe in myself." Jet

"I had said, 'I can't wait to sit down and order something to eat and make them wait on me instead of them bossing me around all the time,' but I haven't done that." Jet

"I don't even think about what I've achieved. I haven't focused on it and I wish I had, because I really want to enjoy it, and I don't know if I am enjoying it, because I'm just going through my life like a bulldozer. I still haven't marvelled at it." Q

"One person could say Hero is a schmaltzy piece of garbage, but another person can write me a letter and say, I've considered committing suicide every day of my life for the past 10 years until I heard that song and I realized after all I can be my own hero. And that, that's an unexplainable feeling, like I've done something with my life, y'know? Here I am the propped-up doll tralala singing a song - and it meant something to someone. So you can critique it to the end of time, I've done my job." Q

"Right now, I'm 24 and my style is what you hear. Mostly I'm choosing specifically to write lyrics that might inspire someone because I've been blessed with a positive and incredible life, I've been blessed with this ability - no matter what I went through, no matter how horrible I felt growing up, no matter how inadequate I felt I was, no matter how poor I was, no matter what - I'm here." Q

"I always thought I was ugly. My best friend was this perfect-looking blond, and I had all this frizzy hair and these bushy eyebrows." Seventeen

"What are you going to do when you grow up and have to clean your own house?" her mom would ask. "Well, I'm going to be a famous singer and have a maid." Seventeen

TV APPEARANCES