Page 7 - Pop History: Mariah Carey Pt. I

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

We dive deep into the herstory of our GDOAT (that's the greatest diva of all time), Mariah Carey   Los Angeles! Come see us live THIS Wednesday at The Regent Theater. Get your tickets here!        Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, this is Jackie. Wizard of Flusie Zabrowski. Here do I get in on a little secret. This week, on Wednesday, December 11th in Los Angeles, there's gonna be a live page seven and Wizard and the Bruiser podcast show at the Regent Theater at 8 p.m. You know you wanna come on out. I'll give you a kiss.

I just, I can't even start it off of the song because I can't hit her notes unless I was going to do. The hero lies in you A will to carry on I don't have the lyrics in front of me, Jackie When a hero comes along With the strength to carry out And you cast your fierce sight

And you know you can survive When you feel like hope is count You can side you and be strong Be strong. To be that truth that a hero lies in you. A hero lies in us, Mariah Carey. And I have to say, I know that we usually start off with the gush, we're going to get into the gush. But I have never felt so bad.

I think that every person that writes rag newspapers should do a deep dive on the people that they write rag newspapers on. because I feel bad that I have japed at Mariah Carey's existence. I feel bad. Then if you look into them, you develop empathy and then you can't write rag through. But a hero lies in me, Natalie. I know. I know, Jackie. I will have to say, by the way, hi, I'm Holden.

I will have to say right now in this moment, I feel like I have gained so much out of learning about this woman's prolific career and I haven't even learned the half of her career. And you're right. I feel like in a lot of ways, I had written her off as, first of all, just a woman I used to masturbate to as a child.

For sure, of course. And then she kind of went, you know, AWOL, I guess one might say. But then you learn, you're like, oh, it's because she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. We're not even going to get into that today. That's 2000.

This is the part one. We are doing the rise of Mariah Care. That's the year 2000. Also, P.S. Side note, I can't wait to watch glitter this next week. I am so... I've never seen it. Me neither. Oh, Natalie, we should get together. Sorry, Holden. You have to watch it by yourself. And we're going to watch it this week. Okay. Because I'm very excited. I can't wait to get into

the glitter territory. Can we do a double feature of glitter and the John, the, uh, the Limp Biscuit movie? The fanatic, of course we can. Yes, a thousand percent we can. I'm very excited. We're going to have a great week. We are going to have a great week. You're going to have a very alone week, Holden, watching glitter by yourself. But, because, you're going to be a thousand percent. But Because today we are just talking about the rise of Mariah Carey and how she became, which to me, I was obsessed with Mariah Carey as a child. But like I was saying to this to Natalie earlier, I was obsessed with emotions through butterfly, Mariah Carey, which is essentially what we are covering today.

Yes. And in her first album, I had never really listened to until looking into this. It's amazing. Incredible. Which is incredible. I mean, I knew visions of love or vision. of love. Vision of love, yeah. And that is such a fucking great pop song.

Really so tight. This is the thing, because I've gotten into, you know, I think more modern pop music has been my thing. Like, I wasn't super listening to pop back when these albums were dropping. And having now gotten more into the genre as of late, man, you go back and you listen to stuff, you're just like, it is so just tightly wrapped, perfect pop for you. you and the and then and then you look at all of her albums and it is just album after album with like massive hits spanning decades that she wrote almost all of i had no idea that she was writing

this fucking well i i didn't real i knew she had a million songs but um i'm going to learn a lot about her today with you guys but i did some music research and everything and i didn't know any of the songs from her first album. And then some, because I know like the fantasy era is when I'm really familiar with her. But then stuff even after that, I didn't, I was not familiar with at all. Well, you were more into the punk scene. And I think that, especially me growing up, I was more into like the pop R&B scene. Yeah.

Way more than you were, which is why I grasped onto Mariah Carey, as we will discuss that She melded pop and hip hop and R&B together. She made a lot of songs. God damn, she made so much music. She just, she's a machine. So let's get into the gush. Jackie, what is your, do you have specific memories of, you know, of her music growing up? Other than like, Hero played it every single middle and high school dance that I attended.

Stuff like that. Like, I feel like she was always going to be there. Every time I went to a retail store to buy clothing. You know what I mean? Like it's just, oh yeah. It's just sort of the background music of your life. You know what I mean?

But were you like a super, super into her stuff early on? I was super into her stuff. I think that I also just always wanted to look like her. And I was, I never knew how to ride a bike or do roller skates or anything. But that video when she's on the, like in her roller blades going down the boardwalk,

which was a sexual awakening for most people. Yes. I mean, I have that visual in my head because of about to go through puberty. It was just like, oh, this is what a sexy, fun, free girl is, I guess. And that's what I wanted to be. I was, I wanted, it wasn't that I wanted to, which surprisingly, Mariah Carey was never a sexual awakening for me personally, even though she definitely was for most of the boys and girls I was around. I wanted to be Mariah Carey. And I remember putting on the elbow pads and the knee pads, but not knowing at his skate.

So I would put socks on and dance around on the wood floors in our queen's home, pretending to be Mariah Carey. Why did you have the elbow and knee pads? Like, just in case. Just for watching it around. No, because my mom always desperately wanted us to learn how to do these things, but never took the time to teach us or we never had like the outdoor space to learn. So we had all of this safety. precautions. We definitely had helmets, but for nothing. Did she at least push you over and stuff so you could use?

Henry and I did that to each other. We definitely would hit like put the helmets on and just slam each other in the head of things. Okay, good. So I think for me personally, I remember her music always being around. I, you know, yada, yada, yada. But it wasn't until we get to 1997's butterfly where full on smoke show Mariah Carey happened right at the perfect time in my adolescence where I was literally just fucking. I can't believe I didn't rip my own penis off, honestly. Are we going to start this episode by talking about your boners? Your Mariah Carey boners?

But it's so funny. So back in the day, it was like, wow, it was like a magic trick or something. It was like overnight she's just like she went from being kind of this innocent girl image to this like sexy, you know, totally just like I said, smoke show. But looking, doing the research, it makes so much sense. And we will talk about what that was for her. That was literally her big fucking middle finger to her own ex-husband and her record label that she was desperately trying to get off of that he was the CEO of. And we will talk about...

That she could do whatever she wanted to do from then on. Yeah. Oh, this is all guffah. This whole episode, I hope you allowed with us go go fah. And her whole struggle to bring more of a hip-hop sound into her music. And they just wanted her to keep pumping out. heroes, you know, one after the other. They wanted her to be a ballad writer.

Yeah, I want to work with Wu-Tang Clan. I want to work with these people. These are cool artists. ODB. And it's where I also, when I really truly fell in love with Mariah Carey, which we will see whenever we start talking about the song breakdown, which is a song that she did with Bone Thugs and Harmony, and especially in reading how she wrote the song and what she did with Bone Thugs and Harmony

to meld their sounds together. as a kid, I was just like, do I like hip hop? Because I never really listened to hip hop. And it's why I started listening to more hip hop when I was in like middle school because I loved Bone Thugs in Harmony, which was almost like it was a set, like a softer version of hip hop,

especially at the time. It was more an R&B. And their song breakdown together. I still sing. And I know for a fact I've opened page sevens with it multiple times because it's always stuck in my head. It's such a great. good song. Holden, I got to say, well, you mentioned honey was sort of when you started to

get erections. Sexually, yes, erectioned for her. I was looking through the videos and I pulled that one up and Henry just walked into the room and was like, oh yeah, I started jerking it to this video. I remember that. Dude, I'm telling you, and I don't want to alienate like by talking about my masturbations for the million time on this show. But at the same time, I bet a ton of guys around Henry and I's age have the same fucking... And this is why, and we've talked about this before,

but this is because this was when MTV was our porn hub. That was it. That's what we had. Well, the beginning of that video, she's in full bondage. Yes. Oh, yeah, I get it.

See, I was too busy looking at Black Hole Sun. That was my rub factory. Black Old Sun? Black Old Sun. You like when the malice gave him? Oh, yeah, I was totally into it. I thought I had problems,

which turns out. out. Now we learn it's not problems. It's just kinks. And that's okay. Okay. Cool. I ain't shaming. But Mariah Carey, 18 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 list. 18 and almost all of them she wrote completely by herself. Which that was news to me. That's awesome. And writing the beat. And I love too that she, when faced with the question,

multiple times when people ask whether she sees herself as a singer or a songwriter, she usually says she sees herself as a songwriter first. And I think that's fucking cool because she was writing poems, which she didn't realize were essentially song lyrics since she was a kid. Yeah. You know, I think it's because it's actually due to the fact that she's such a master of image and branding and all of these other things on top of her songwriting abilities. It's just a testament to how many things, many hats that she wears that we wouldn't even know, oh, she actually, you know, because her performance skills are. incredible. Her ability to just stay relevant and reinvent her herself. It's like, oh, like you wouldn't even know it. And that's just so crazy. I think that's where Jackie and I

and Natalie are coming from when we come to like having such a grown respect for her through doing this research this week. I think it also where my inspiration comes from her now too is that this is a woman that from a young age, no matter what she was going through, she set out an intention for herself from a very young age. She knew from a kid that she was going to be a superstar. And she, much to the point

that she acted like, I think, a shitty teenager and was definitely gave her mother a lot of shit because even I read multiple times that she had these quotes that when her mother would tell her to clean her room, she'd say, I don't have to clean my room.

I'm going to have a maid someday. And you know what? She did. She does. Yeah. I am afraid of her. Oh yes. Her intentions are very strong.

She said what she was going to do. And by gum, she did it. I think that's maybe why, even as a like a tween before I got into like harder music, that I wasn't super into her because she felt like she would squash me. Like I was such a dork. She was like a bully from my school. I was like, no, I can't. I think that's why I was so into her as well.

I think that's where I vied with the words like, I liked her intention. and I liked her power. I respect it now. Oh, yeah. And I definitely was like probably much like Henry, like, yeah, whatever you want, Mariah, do you want me to climb the tallest building for you right now? Do you want me to, do you want me to rip all my fucking ass hair out one by one? You should do that anyway.

I should do that. You should do it anyway. Well, let's get into it. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Mariah Carey, born in Huntington, New York. To my father, I know, right, Huntington, yeesh. Getting off to a good start, guys, to a father of African-American

and Afro-Venezuelan descent and an Irish-American mother. And the name Mariah actually came from a song, They Call the Wind Mariah, which was in the musical, Paint Your Wagon! Paint your wagon they call the wind, Mariah! Interesting. I'm sure that's not how they sang the song. Back when musicals were made to be boring.

Seriously, though. How dare you? Lay Miz is a treasure. Her mother, Patricia, sang in the opera from time to time. vocal coach. And a terribly tragic story and so, so important to know all of this, to set the context for Mariah's upbringing. Her mother was disowned by her family for marrying a black man. And because of this, Mariah felt neglected by her maternal family.

And this fucked her up. And she dealt with a lot of issues having to do with her parents being, you know, of mixed race. Growing up as biracial, it really affected. how she viewed herself and how society viewed her as well. She said, I had to go through so much in my childhood just to feel accepted and feel worthy of existing on earth because I felt so different from everybody else growing up

because I was biracial, because I was so ambiguous looking and because we didn't have the money to escape whatever the everyday realities of life were. What year was she born? It is shady because she lies about her age a lot, but it seems that she's born in 1916. 70.

Okay. It is very funny, though, because many people are like, I think, I know a roundish. Yeah. Girl, just embrace it. Come on. It's so Mariah, though. That's so on Bradford. So I kind of love it.

That's true. I love it. It's hard even now to, to be in a biracial relationship or, you know, date somebody outside for a lot of people. Which that's ridiculous. That still blows my mind. Even just with how we were raised. I can't.

People are ridiculous. Yes. They are. But imagine how old hard that was in the 70s. I can't even. At a divorce on top of that, when Mariah is just three years old, she said a lot of intense stuff happened to me when I was a kid, that people who grew up with money or families that weren't fully dysfunctional will never quite understand.

You know, they moved around a lot. Her sister, Allison, which is going to be a big point of discussion, especially next episode, moved in with her father while Mariah and her brother Morgan stayed with their mother. Carrie said it's been difficult for me moving around so much having to grow up by myself my parents divorced and I always felt kind of different from everybody else in my neighborhoods I was a different person ethnically and sometimes that can be a problem if you look a certain way everybody goes white girl and I'd go no that's not what I am and even recently she was posting screenshots I forget what it had to do with but they were they were you know calling her like saying she didn't her opinion wasn't valid because she was a white girl and shit and it's It's so crazy. Like even today. Yeah.

And the same kind of thing, too, when I remember back in the day as well that I even remember as a kid people giving her shit because she acted like a Latina when she wasn't a Latina. And I think it's because we grew up in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in Queens. And all of my friends were Latinas. And so a lot of them also didn't like her for that. It's like she's not, I mean, she has African as well as Venezuelan descent. but she's not pretending to be any of these things. She's aware that she's by racial, that she's not, like, let her be Mariah,

which is essentially why I think she created Mariah. Like she is meany. Yeah, and it's really difficult, too, with people and how much they want to protect their identities. And I get that to an extent that, like, people do abuse other nationalities and, like, take from them and appropriate shit. So I get that that's a real thing, but definitely, you know, sometimes people aren't trying to do that and then get kind of caught in that crossfire. Yeah, and it's a more complex situation, not based, you know. At four years old, she ends up sneaking the radio under the covers at night to sing as a form of escapism from her day-to-day life.

And in high school, she ends up doing what Jackie mentioned earlier, writing poems and adding melodies to them. And that's around when she starts getting training from her mother, who, of course, has the opera background. Now, her mother actually noticed from when Mariah was a very young age, when her mother was rehearsing for Verdi's Rigoletto for her own New York City opera debut. Her mother told people in 1993, from the time Mariah was a tiny girl, she sang on true pitch. She was able to hear a sound and duplicate it exactly. That's insanely hard to do. And so what? She said, when she was rehearsing and her mother said, I'm, missed my cue, but Mariah

didn't. She sang it in Italian at exactly the right point. She wasn't yet three. How terrified of your child was you? Oh, that's what we need to talk about Kevin. Then it's just like, I don't know what to do with you, you're scary. Yeah. But it's also why I will say, even though we will talk about the downsides of her

family, especially her siblings as they grow older, I do like that her family supported what she was doing. It always lifted her up for the most part, even if it wasn't financially, it was emotionally. Lord knows I would have put that kid in an orphanage.

Yeah, yeah, get rid of it. No, no, no. That or suck out her talent, like in The Little Mermaid. Oh, like cut her vocal cords. Sure, yeah. Natalie. Yeah, so it's also around this time she's demonstrating her ability to perform the whistle register, which is the highest register in the human voice.

And again, we were talking about her career as we now know it, But I remember back when like the first album dropped and was gaining popularity, she was mostly known as that singer that had this crazy range that could hit this crazy high whistle note. I didn't know that term before this. Yeah, yeah. I remember her being known as like the pop singer that could hit this really high note. And it was almost not like a, it was almost like a circus act. You know what I mean?

It was something that she was actually taught how to do. In 1998, she explains that that she can still. have the high register and the belting register and still have her husky voice due to the nodules that are in her throat, which is actually interesting because I have the same nodules myself. Let's hear it, Jackie. I. Hi. Hi. No, I can't do it because she said, I've learned to sing through my vocal cords. It's a certain part of the chord that not many people use. She uses the very top of her vocal cords. How do you find the top? But this is also this, I don't, she trained, she trained with people and learned how to

this and she said even from she's at the nodules since childhood and then use them then to talk in a really high whisper before training herself to sing in a really high whisper as well. So she learned how to do this in some way. I don't know how to do it. But it's also plays into the fact of why now when she's live, she can't hit the proper notes because she has to be in the right temperature in the right place. Like she has to focus to sing like that. I want to know how to control my vocal chords. Dude, I don't know, man. Talk to Murray Carey. We find out early on that, you know, she wasn't after, you know, and this jumping had a little bit, but after her first album comes out, she's like, I can't perform this shit live, like on a normal touring schedule. This is like, this is how technically difficult, especially her first couple of albums are.

I think she started to refine her process a little bit in her approach with knowledge that she would be performing stuff live. But she always kind of hated touring her live show, which is funny because, you know, the New Year's Eve performance is such a big now thing. Her cluster fucking performance. But for her, I think she was so much more of a studio musician, more of a writer, liked that sort of comfortable environment where you can really hone in and do something special as opposed to being that performer that just wants to be on stage all over the world every night. And there's a big difference. Well, she actually, she explained this too because her mother is classically trained

but she said that she doesn't read music and she says that it thinks it helped her write songs that I wouldn't have written if I were going at the technical way because they go, oh, you can't go from this chord to that chord it's not the way you're supposed to do it. So she wasn't doing it the way she was properly supposed to do it which is why you also burn out your vocal cords. Holden, that's all really interesting

but hold on, I need to know how high you can sing. Is that a riot camera? I don't know that's a sing or a song or just some sort of an animal noise. Riot Carey is here. What can you do, Natalie? I think that's almost whistle register. I think that's pretty good. I was a soprano.

So it's around this time. It's in late high school. She starts writing songs with a guy named Gavin Christopher, who is an R&B songwriter, singer, and producer that started out with Shaka Khan in a band called Life and later worked with Herbie Hancock, among many others. And with Gavin, she writes her first song, or at least with him, her first song was, Here We Go Round Again. That's when they start bringing in another guy named Ben Margulies.

And he's going to be a super important figure early on in her career. He comes into play keyboard. And as Carrie puts it, they kept in touch and we just sort of clicked as writers. Margulies said, when we met, she was 17 years old and I was 24. We worked together for a three-year period developing most of the songs on the first album. She had the ability just to hear things in the air and start developing songs out of them.

Often I would sit down and start playing something. And from the feel of a chord, she would start singing melody lines and coming up with the concept. It's pretty crazy. This is how she writes most of her music. Yes. Is that she finds people that she works with

and jives with very well and then she holds onto them because just from the sound of the keys of someone playing something, she'll start, not only she'll start singing in the different, like, pitches or whatever she's got,

I don't know what the musical term is for it, but immediately starts creating lyrics in her head, like a fucking machine. But it's also, this comes back to when I was saying that her siblings at least supported her in some fashion. Her older brother Morgan was so impressed by what she was working on with Gavin Christopher

that for her 16th birthday, he paid for sessions in a professional 24-track recording studio. in Manhattan. And that's part of the demo that she is writing at this time that her brother, her brother who was 10 years older than her paid for her to do that.

Good investment. It's a good investment. And at this time, I also think it was funny because everyone in high school called her Mirage because she would never show up to school. Yeah.

She was very bad at school. Me neither, but I wasn't doing anything to benefit my life. Should I start calling you Mirage? No, I think that meant, that means that I would have had to have accomplished something.

You have accomplished so much. No, go on. Ding, ding, ding, ding. If you want to start writing music, ding, ding, ding, ding. Do you want to come up with lyrics? Oh, my God, Mirage. She also at this time, she spent, in her last two years of high schools, she did over 500 hours in cosmetology school to have something to fall back on

while she was recording these early demos just in case. because everyone, that was the only other thing that she liked and all of her teachers said, well, you at least, if you apply yourself and it's something you want

to be interested in, you excel. And she was really into everything she was learning at cosmetology school, which also plays into the fact that when she finally does get her freedom,

she knows exactly how she wants to. Totally. That would benefit you very much as a performer. 100%. To know what, like, no aesthetics,

to know what you want and everything. Yeah. And after high school, she ends up moving into a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan with four other ladies. I would love to talk to those girls. Women now. I want to hear the stories.

I want to hear the stories. But at the same time, I moved in. I was in a one-bedroom with three other people in New York. I was in one of those in Brooklyn as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she did actually say, I think she was just so hyper-focused at this point in her career that she didn't really party a lot, that she just had her nose to the ground. One of my favorite facts. I hope this is true. She worked as a waitress and restaurants generally getting fired after about two weeks. That is so Mariah. I think that it is true.

That checks out. She actually says it in multiple interviews of how she was not good at working in customer service. I would also love to have seen that. Yes. She said that she couldn't be nice to people when she knew she wasn't making enough money. Which I mean. I love that.

I get it. I tend on to get, unless they're doing something horrific, I don't get too mad at people in stores if they're like rude to me or like fast food or whatever because I don't expect you to give a fuck about what I'm trying to get up. But I'm still, I'm always in forever the nicest because I did the customer service for a long time.

This is why I always say everybody should have to do a teaching job for a year and people should have to do a retail customer service job for a year. Totally, dude, I'm with you. So she's still working with Marguilees late at night on songs and eventually she's able to put out a four-song demo tape that failed

against her wishes to break in with a major label yet. So I will say though at this time she said that she would go because she didn't have the money for a bus fare or anything. She would go on foot to virtually every record company in New York with her demo tape in hand that she had made with Ben Margleys. She said for a year I couldn't pay someone to listen to my tapes. They think if you don't have a high powered manager or don't have a record company that's already interested in you, then you're no good. It's how it always is. Yeah. I mean it's still the same. You do it. It is sort of like a past the time. It's thing where you're going to get treated

like such garbage if you really want it, you have to just keep fucking doing it. You keep going. Yep. And so, at least not long after the demo is produced, Carrie does get a gig with Brenda K. Starr as a backup singer who noticed her, quote, gifted voice. And

her and Carrie really hit it off in a lot of ways. And I love one aspect that Mariah Carey talked about in a interview where she said all she had at that point were her songs that she had written. And she was offered at one point, like 500 bucks for her songs. At one point, Brenda K. Starr, I don't know if this was a different situation or the same

one. Brenda K. Starr was like, I would love to buy your songs off of you. And that was one point where she stood stubborn on. She was like, this is all I have. She did Brenda Starr wanted to put them on her album. And Mariah Carey's response was, you know what? I love you and thank you for hiring me, but I'm going to keep my songs. Yeah, and I love that.

Which go for ha. Can we get a good for ha? I think that's true for a lot of musicians when they're starting out. they get kind of run through. Like, you know, people offer them amount of money for their work. And then you need the money. And you're like, okay, sure. And then you never see profits from something that may be very successful ever.

And this is the manipulation, right? Rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection. So much so that finally one person says, I'll accept you. I will buy all your stuff for the very fine price of $500. And because you've been put through the ringer for so long, and everyone's told you know so much. It's so difficult when you get into that situation. I've been in that situation before where you're like,

somebody wants to offer us a situation. It sucks. But what the fuck else are we going to do? I think we need to take it. And that's when you hit that fork in the road. Do I stand by my laurels? Or do I just say fuck it in me, you know, and get out of this struggling artist scenario that I'm in some way.

You know what I mean? But she's stuck by herself. Yeah. But it is, it's like the hero wasn't her. Yeah. You know, you gotta believe in yourself. When a hero comes long. Oh my God, I've been listening to so much, Mariah.

So, but what does happen with Brenda Starr that is huge is Brenda Starr takes Mariah Carey to a record executive gala, where she is able to hand her demo to the head of Columbia Records at the time who was named Tommy Matola. Tommy Matola. Sounds like a rape party. Well, you know, at least to Tommy Mottola, that was in the issue, but everything else was the issue. But it is, this is such a, like, this felt like a scene in a movie. Like, this felt like a Star is Born style scene, right? In the sense of, Motola, he listens to it on the way home.

He's like, this is the greatest thing I've ever heard. I've got to get this woman on my record label. And he's like, driver, turn around. Frankie Sharp, Sharp Records. I need to sign you. The driver turns around. they go speed back to the gala, but when he gets there, he just missed her.

She just left. And so he ends up, and this is, of course, back in the day. So it takes him like two weeks to finally get a hold of Carrie, trying to just call around town and whatever, I think gets a hold of her through Brenda Starr, and is able to, and then immediately signs her as soon as he gets her on the phone. See, the thing is that this does sound like a rom-com,

And in researching more about Tommy Motola and what was happening with Columbia at the time, the reason why he did that with the demo tape is that Columbia was desperate for a new female pop star, especially one with an ambiguously ethnic background. Because the thing is that Warner Brothers was rapidly increasing their share of the music market

and Columbia didn't have any young new female pop stars to introduce and make money on because they were going against Whitney Houston who recorded for Arista, and Madonna who recorded for Sire, so they needed somebody they were going to make money off of. So when Mariah was brought into Columbia, so this is great. It's a dream come true, right?

Yeah, this isn't just, oh, we're a big label and we're going to make your record. This is like, we are going to focus all of our efforts. We own you, though. On making you the biggest pop star we can possibly make you. And this is, it is out of a fairy tale, but that she was designated a priority artist, meaning making her a star was of utmost importance

and a good number of people would lose their job if she didn't succeed. So the campaign created for her was the largest and most expensive the label had undertaken to break an artist since Bruce Springsteen and Born to Run. And at this point, she was 19 years old. Oh, that's too young.

Think of that pressure. And I mean, she believed in herself. So she knew that she could do this. But then you think, so all of a sudden, You are thrust into this and you know that you can do this. You know that you're talented and contracts are being thrown at you. You fucking sign them. What do you else?

I mean, you don't know. They're made to confuse you. Yes. All those contracts. And like you just said, the alternate side of that is that, yes, they are putting all this energy and money into you. But you are essentially now their entity. Like your entire life is owned by the company. Everything you do it.

It's a back to, I know that someday we'll do Britney Spears. Like, why she shaved her head? Every step she takes, she must have permission. If she wants to put on mascara, she must have permission. She has to have permission to do anything. And so one thing that's nice, she's able to pull in Margulies, her collaborator at that time, which is very huge. Because without him, I don't know if she would have had the album that she had. And also, Matola brings in the top producers at the time, Rick Wake, who won four Grammy Awards, worked with Vocal

like Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Jessica Simpson, Nerada Michael Walden, who produced music for The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, and Whitney Houston. Everybody worked with Whitney Houston. Rhett Lawrence also fucking... So they're bringing in the best of the best. Yeah, and this is when Whitney Houston

is the top situation, really. I mean, and Madonna, of course, but almost even more so Whitney. And so Marguerese composes with Mariah Carey seven of the 11 songs on the album and all the big ones, too. So like you got, you cannot deny Margalese in this early part of her career. He really was instrumental, literally and figuratively,

and getting her first album to be the hit that it was. So what do we got? The song, All in Your Mind, Mariah Carey said, I was using my upper register. What happened was at the end of it, I did these vocal flips. When I was doing it, my voice split and went into a harmony. If you hear it, it splits. I was saying, get rid of that.

But everyone was saying, no way we're keeping that. I don't even understand what that means. So you'll hear it. I'll go back and listen to it. Yeah. It's kind of, and I would say go to, it's the end of the song. And it's almost like right when the fade out starts, you'll hear it. She does a thing that I think, like, don't like monks do this, like in their enchance, like where they can, it's like this special crazy technique that is like very, very unique and very difficult to do.

It just really shows that she has such insane. control over her vocal chords. And at this point, she didn't have control over just that, but then she realized that she could do it. Because if you listen to it, then as you listen to more and more Mariah Carey music, a lot of her music, she does the harmonies with herself on the songs, because she is the only one that can harmonize properly with herself and how she's singing. Right.

You mean, you mean, like, record tracks to harmonize with other tracks, or that she's actually splitting her throat? No, no, no, no. The thing that she did on All In Your Mind is like a very specific, almost an accident. But no, she's talking about layering harmonies on. Okay, layering. Yeah. Yeah, onto her own stuff.

Which is why, and you'll hear that, too. If you go back and listen to the production stuff happening, you can hear those layers and things going on. So Mariah Carey ends up being the best selling album in the U.S. in 1991. That was the name of her album. It was self-titled. And it started out not huge. It started out very, like, very quiet, the release. But it slowly builds traction, especially after her performance on the Grammys.

She wins Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. And also, she performs Vision of Love on the Grammys. The number one singles, Revision of Love, Love Takes Time, Someday, and I Don't Want to Cry. And it made, it actually, she was the first. first music act since the Jackson Five to have her first four singles hit number one, but still she felt constricted. Which is

nuts. That's in the early 90s, right? 91. Correct, 91. Okay. The earliest of the 90s. But still, she's feeling constrained like Jackie was just saying. She said, in the early part of my success, I was cloistered. I was like a Rapunzel and a castle kept away from the world.

So I didn't get to feel famous. I just felt like, okay, I'll go out there when they tell me. It's time to go sing. And then I'll come back here and sit in the house. I think that is being famous. Yeah, I think pretty much. It's like, because also she was owned by them. So where is she going to go?

What is she going to do? Your whole life is now you sing when we tell you to sing. The beginning of my career was bleak because I was surrounded by everybody who was so much older than me. And I wasn't really allowed to have fun. The big boys were always in control. So it's with emotions that she begins her process of rebellion. She wanted it to be an homage and a tribute to the Motown soul music that she listened to as a child.

And she ends up working with Walter of Fantasyf, who had a minor role in the first album, as well as Robert Clavillis and David Cole, who you might know from C&C Music Factory. Remember C&C Music Factory? Yeah, of course I do. I forgot all about C&C Music Factory. That's them, right? Is that not it? I think it is. I think that's their song.

Sounds good to me. I know it's one of those. If I were like, you will die if you get this next question wrong. Did CNC Music Factory make everybody dance now? I would definitely be like, absolutely they did. Yes, they did. That sounds right. I think that sounds good. So working with a fantasy F is another one of those.

I don't want to use the word kismet, but I'm going to say kismet. In the same way as meeting Margulies, that she said, we have this connection where I'll sing what I'm hearing. and he'll start playing. And usually it's what I'm hearing in my head. Walter really tries to let me lead. He knows it's important to let me let the melodies I have develop, which is another, so she, in a weird way that fate has brought her these people that help her,

even though she is being put essentially in a creative cage, still let her be herself in small amounts of ways. Well, I would say to Satan, viewpoint. I know that's the thing, but I didn't want to bring that into it. Her will sort of manifests that. If you have a strong enough will in a need and a pull to yourself, people will show up. And especially it's been her intention from a young age that she was going to do this. Yeah. Unfortunately, Margulies was not really on this album much because this is the first and what will become a series of different falling outs that Mariah Carey has in her life.

Yeah. Marguerese and Carrie, uh, they signed, he had signed a contract with her. before they signed with Columbia, with her agreeing to split both songwriting royalties as well as half her earnings. Sony puts their foot down on a motion, saying he would only be paid the usual amount that a co-songwriter would get paid. Carrie said, I signed blindly.

Later, I tried to make it right so we could continue, but he wouldn't accept it. Margolese, he sued Sony. It was a mess, and it's very unfortunate. Also, though, you were talking about the songwriting process, Jackie. Carol King has a lot to do with Miranda. I know. I didn't know that it's so fun.

Makes me so happy. I love Carol King. Isn't that great? So it's actually because Carol King comes over to Carrie, I bet it this time, I'm just assuming, Mariah Carey is feeling a little fucked up about what's going on between her and Marguerleys

and is scared about her approach to creating the next album. But then it's Carol King who hits her up and is just like, hey, I want to work with you, whatever you want to do. So they get together, they sit at the piano, and just over many hours, they create the song if it's over.

And that was the process where she goes to a fantasy F and says, look, you sit at the piano, I stand over you, I just start singing, you start laying stuff down, just like you were talking about. It's a unique process. But a great one. It's such a strong way for two people to create something organically. And she talks about how a lot of people don't get that about her.

She wants to be there the whole time for the whole process of creating. and recording the song. And a lot of times it would be like, okay, give me what you have. I'm going to go off into my corner. I'm going to work on it. I'm going to bring you what I have. And that's just not how she works whatsoever.

Well, also at this time, she didn't have the terminology for it, and she didn't realize that she was producing her own music, but she wasn't getting paid as a producer. And her name wasn't on it as a producer, but she said that she was the one sitting in the room being like, well, that should be higher and we should bring this in then.

So she was producing it, but she didn't know it, so she wasn't getting paid or being known as such. Very similar to, I mean, Ryan, I have a lot in common. But I say that constantly. One of the things we have in common is I was producing the film industry before I even knew what a producer was and wasn't getting credited for it. And then I was like, oh, wait a second. I'm a producer. I've been producing for like three years. And I should be recognized.

And it's crazy because I don't even think that that is in this case. a female thing. I think it's just a young thing. They knew that they didn't have to pay her as much. Oh, it is for sure. And it's an industry thing. Right. If you're not asking for the money, they're never going to give it to you. I was trying to sing emotions yesterday. And Jeff K. Bay, he's like, are you sick? I just can't hit her notes. Are you crying? Emotions is a great song. It's a great song. The whole album, it's, it's her with a little bit more

freedom. It's got more gospel and soul sounds in it. It's playing around a little bit more, which is what she wanted to do, I think, in terms of genre and things like that. Also, though, this album comes out the year after her debut. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that she was breaking away from the normal string of make an album tour for a year, go back into the studio. She didn't want to go on tour like we said before. She just wanted to stay in the studio because she knew, A, I don't think she liked the travel and the rigmarole involved in touring. But also, she technically just didn't feel like she could do those songs night after night, like we said earlier. But that created all these rumors that she was like unable to do it live, unable to be a live

performer. So in order to put those rumors to rest, she goes on MTV Unplugged and crushes it. It's so good that it ends up getting aired three times more than the average unplugged episode. It's, and I remember that one being a standout. I remember that one. And actually Mariah recollected on the experience, noting, I feel like that special really helped my career. It was like my first concert. Doing unplugged really made me excited to tour and really got me curious about going out and performing. I love doing it. I was really nervous when I first started because I had no experience. It was like a totally unknown thing for me. Now since Unplugged especially, it really helped me really just break out of my shell of it.

Because you have to remember, and if you think about this, which is so interesting, that she was working her ass off in the studio at the same time when a lot of people are, hitting the club. She even says this. She said when I first put out my first album, I had never done clubs, like most singers, come up doing clubs and learning about performing. I never did it because I was learning about writing songs and working in the studio and coming from that end of things. So she really, I mean, if you can do it that way, isn't it the smartest, coolest way? Because then you know from the inside out of how to make your music and do what you want to be doing. But of course she's terrified of performing. She's not a performer. Right. She's a singer. She's a songwriter. And I had never really thought of that concept before.

And I think it's because all of us are performers. I was like, well, of course. Don't you want to go out and do your thing? That's part of the reason why I enjoy writing comedy so I can be on stage and do comedy in front of other people. Or you guys that are listening right now. It's a way for me to share what I think is my God-given talent. To fill that void inside. Yes, the dead and the emotions that I try not to think about.

and the trauma. But that's not the case with Mariah Carey. Thanks, listeners. Speaking of emotions, yes, the shackles were pulled off a little bit for this album. Unfortunately, emotions fails to do quite as well

as the initial debut. That's why they're really, really put back on for music box. And you'll notice that. It's got hero on it. It's incredibly traditionally a pop album without any of those extra genres coming in to play.

And I think this is the beginning of her starting to really resent her relationship with Sony as an artist. And at this time, she is flirty birdie. This is the start two of her and creepy bitch-ass Tommy Motola. Because he also did have, he kept putting his creep hands all over the creation of music box. And I did find it interesting that, so I'm sorry, They explain why they worked on the song Hero.

Yes, so Epic Records approaches Mariah Carey and a fantasy F to write a song for an upcoming Dustin Hoffman and Gina Davis 1992 film called Hero. Have you guys seen it? I don't remember it. Nope. No, I have not seen it. No, I know nothing about it. I just know the song.

And the song was originally intended for Gloria Stefan. So, but also, when they came to Mariah Carey, she said, because I was thinking of someone else, I wasn't trying to write in it too high of a key or make it too intricate. And then it just became the simplicity of it that was part of the appeal. But at that time, Tommy Motola walked in

and asked us what we were doing. We told him we just wrote the song for the movie Hero. He said, let me hear it. And after he heard it, he looked at us and he said, there's absolutely no way you're giving that song to that movie. This is your song, Mariah. So he ended up recording it herself.

We didn't give it to the movie. and I didn't write anything for the movie. Just his name makes him sound like such a taint. Tommy Motola, he's just such a creep. I mean, that song though, I mean, that was the right call. That's the worst part of that he's right about it. But he just, I just, ooh, creepest. Also, look up a picture of Tommy Motola,

creep, dumb face that I just want to be like, oh, you know, while you're doing all of this, that you're married with two children, you piece of shit. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. That's why it took them so. so long to get married. Ah, I see. Well, she always

said about Hero. She always felt it was too schmaltzy for her particular sound until she started receiving letters from around the world saying it's one of those songs that people hear and it actually gives them the will to keep living. And after getting so many stories from so many different

people saying that that song helped them through dark, dark times in their lives, she knows. It's one of the most performed songs that she has that she does live. She really stands behind it. But, yeah, it was definitely, but again, it was definitely,

it was definitely, this is very much symbolic of her struggle with Columbia. It was like, I want to do Motown, gospel, I want to bring on all these other sounds, these, you know, and honestly,

blacker sounds, you know what I mean? And Metola being like, no, we need you to be this, like, whiter thing. Right.

They wanted her to be as, like, close to white girl next door as she could be. Look at the color of me. Look at the cover of music box. It's insane. Look at the cover of it.

It's like white watching. And now these things would be ripped apart. But this, it wasn't her choice, but she would be ripped apart for it. Well, back then there wasn't any form of social media. So the, the industry just put out whatever they wanted. Right. And nobody had any say or opinions about it. Yeah.

And it does get pan. Music box does get panned by critics for being this very basic collection of pop songs. But the album, of course, becomes one of the best of all time. What other songs are on that? Hero, you've got Dream Lover, which is great. This is the one I'm familiar with and then like fantasy.

No, fantasy is not. That's next. Honestly, this is not, this is where she started, you know, this is in the jungle of the middle part of her songwriting, but the same time, the album is still great. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's silly to even talk about it

in any kind of negative sense because it's, like I said, one of the best selling of all time. And also the song, Fitt of Feel Emotion. That's how it. Okay. And was that closer? Yeah, it was closer.

You've got a great voice, Jackie. I mean, I ain't no Mariah Carey. We all do know that. So, Carrie ends up marrying Tommy Motola in June of 1993. Oh, can we talk about this, though, for a second? Of course. I want to see a picture of it. You have to look up pictures of their wedding because the ceremony was

modeled after Princess Diana and Princess Charles. Of course it was. And yes. Over the top. But she quote, Mariah Carey says quote, yeah, everybody talks about that, but no one saw me on the honeymoon running down the beach, miserable,

crying and alone. So Mottola was 20 years her senior. And like I said, was married with two children when they met. And he said that pursuing a romance with his ingenue was absolutely wrong in an inappropriate. and inappropriate.

He said this later on. Wow. What's so brave of him. If it seems like I was controlling, I apologize. Was I obsessive? Yes. But that was also part of the reason for her success. I want to fuck him now.

Go fuck yourself, dude. Go fuck yourself. If it seemed like I was controlling, she said even though I owned that house, the only thing I felt like I owned was my pocketbook. Tommy didn't even know why I always had. my bag with me, but in my mind I thought, if something jumps off, I'm ready. I lived like that for a long time. I used to wish hope and dream that someone would kidnap me. How old was she at

that point when they got married? When she's like in her early 20s. Yuck. That's insane. And she wasn't allowed to leave the house without permission. She does openly say that it did strengthen her, but it wounded her. When you have to control your own emotions constantly and be aware of every move you make and pretty much ask permission to exist, it affects your life. At one of the heights of your career. Of her career. Like at the most powerful. This isn't like pre what you know what I mean?

It's so insane how. That could only happen because it was like the head of her label. Of course. Of course. And then this. But there also is the power, the power balance of him being much older and her really not knowing how to be an adult yet and not really knowing what was appropriate and what wasn't.

lost her virginity to him. Yeah, I mean. And she, and that's why, and actually also in all of this research that we've been doing, I'd make, I had made jokes, and I apologize. I made jokes on page seven when she had said that you could count, like, at this point, like right after the divorce said you could count on, you know, I think now she said, what is that six people that she slept with in her life. And she, there was a lot of quotes about her with her relationship with Tommy Motola that

she is very openly not, you can be a sexual person. and not be into fucking. Absolutely. And she is one of those people. She losing her virginity to a man like that, that sex was not an enjoyable experience for her. Who's this? It depends on the time of day.

I think that she, I don't think she's lying. I think that is something that she's kept close to the chest and that how dare I judge her because she dresses, now especially she dresses the way that she does, that she holds herself the way that she's a diva and she's a superstar, I just assumed that she was fucking all the time. Because if I was a divo, it probably would be. But why am I?

I shouldn't say that about someone else. Jackie, you're a fucking behole. I'm a beehole and I apologize. No, you're not a behole. She's a bit of a behole. I'm a bit of a behole. But now she definitely, Mariah Carey does not have complete control over her music before this. And now definitely not until they get divorced in 1998.

But she still is able to. slip shit past the cola. And in fact, one of the, it goes, now let's get into Merry Christmas. This is at a time

when now it's like every artist has their Christmas album. You know, even Ariana Grande has her fuck, fuck me, it's Christmas album. I can't wait to talk about the fuck me.

It's Christmas. Yeah, it's Ralph. And so like, but, but, and this is a quote from a fantasy, FACF, back then,

you didn't have a lot of artists with Christmas albums. It wasn't a known science at all back then. And there was no, who did new big Christmas songs. This is now 1994. Carrie said, I'm a very festive person.

I love the holidays. I've sung Christmas songs since I was a little girl. I used to go Christmas caroling. When it came to the album, we had to have a nice balance between standard Christian hymns and fun songs. 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 time, no matter how good a new song is. I do like that she was originally when they came. to her about even just writing new music and doing this album, she thought it was too early in her career to do a Christmas album. And she didn't understand why it was being suggested to her.

And she was openly against it. Oh, okay. But they forced her to do it anyway. I did not know that. Thank you, Jackie. They forced her to do it anyway. So it sounded like that was something she was really enthusiastic about doing. Well, I will say, they fucking wrote, all I want for Christmas is you in 15 minutes.

It is, which is insane. 15 minutes. Isn't that wild that, like, that? the things in your career that you've put the least amount of effort into sometimes like pay the best out and then you'll work on projects for five years and nobody gives it flying fuck about it right not i'm not speaking for brosal experience and honestly songwriters talk about this all the time i've even had some experiences with this where like it's just like that a lot when it comes to the creative songwriting process like that you will slave over a song for weeks and months and

even have to bail on it at the end of the day. And then other ones will just hit you. I'll just be in the shower in some of our most memorable songs from my band are like happening, you know, literally five minutes. And it's frustrating. Like, you're like, why is it like this? But it's very much a part of the creative process, especially for songwriters. So it's, it's the middle of the summer.

Mariah Carey decorates her entire home with all things Christmas to get into the spirit. And she does love Christmas too. Yes. What I do love, and it's someone that she, in a lot of the interviews, she talks about how she never had good Christmases as a kid. Her mom was always into Christmas. Her dad was not, and they never had any money. But now it's essentially like what we are doing with our family,

it's taking back Christmas. Right. Where you have this a lot of bad memories about Christmas, and you always, like, for years, I was just like, fuck Christmas. I hate Christmas. But then you take it back for yourself and for your family, Back from Jesus, and it's more about have a cocktail and have a smile

and put a fucking Santa hat on. Because it's great. And I like that Mariah Carrie really embraces this. Now, because now she's essentially what is referred to as the queen of Christmas. Well, I will say that song really does make me feel festive.

It's a fucking great song. It is. It is a fun song. A Fantasy F. Fes said, I started playing some rock and roll piano and started boogie-woogieing my left hand. And And that inspired Mariah to come up with the melodic, I don't want to laugh for Christmas. Oh, no, yeah, it's the beginning. You know that, ping, ping, ping, ping, pink, pink.

Is that a boogie-wogie? That's a little bit of a boogie-wogging. And then we started singing and playing around with this rock and roll boogie song, which immediately came out to be the nucleus of what would end up being all I went for Christmas is you. That one went very quickly. It was an easier song to write than some of the other ones. It was very formulaic, not a lot of chord changes. I didn't even realize that came from an entire album.

Oh, yeah. I also enjoyed that, so one of the interviews I was reading with Mariah Carey, they watched the original All I Want for Christmas is You music video, and she was so excited to watch it. And she's pointing at the video and she said, see me in the snow in that little Santa suit? That was in the studio. That was a real moment, she says proudly.

I was freezing cold. My hair was frozen. It was outside in a snow. snowy field in New Jersey and I'll just never forget it because they were real reindeer. And the way that they had said in the interview, it's like she saw it as magic, which I think is really beautiful. That's so sweet. And that song, by the way, has charted every single holiday season since its original release,

which is in 1994. It's eaten every other Christmas song. I read somewhere, and I don't know if this is an accurate fact, but I read somewhere that that song's grossed her like $60 million or something. I would totally believe that. Oh, yeah. That's why she's the Queen of Christmas. And again, I think that she's leaned into that,

not because anyone is forcing her to, but it's made her $60 million. So fucking, sure, I'm the Queen of Christmas. Why me to be the Queen of Christmas? Yeah, there. Also, at the end of this interview, I was reading about the 25th anniversary of the album, which is this year,

she said, I enjoyed that so much referring to the interview. Thank you. I think everybody should spend Christmas with me because it's a great experience. I love her. You're right. I want to do, I want to do Christmas with her shirt. Let me in your house.

That sounds great. So spin Christmas with her. Well, here we go. Let us get into the beginning of the end for Mariah Carey's relationship with her, at this point, husband and Columbia Records. Mariah Carey with Daydream wants to meld R&B with hip hop and create a body of work that was her most personal expression to date, which causes a ton of tension between her and Matola, who wants, obviously, to have control, wants her to be this, like, much whiter pop singers type of person.

I mean, everything, this feels in a lot of ways like a total rebellion, like, which is a great thing. It's almost like her shitty relationship is making her take these risks in her career and do these interesting things. But this is what she loved. She was very into hip-hop. She was very into Airbnb. She said, everyone was like, what are you crazy?

Carrie told Entertainment Weekly in 1997, they're very nervous about breaking the formula. It works to have me sing a ballad on stage and a long dress with my hair up. And Puffy, who couldn't believe it either, he said it bugged him out the fact that she wanted to use her girl next door looks to amiably present hip hop to, quote, white America. Which it did. I mean, it worked on you.

It did. It did. It did it. And she wanted to go against what she saw as Madonna exploiting hip. pop for her own benefit. Right. And she wanted to embrace the world of hip hop and meld it with pop music.

Yeah. Which also paid off because the first single fantasy debuted at number one, making Mariah Carey the first female artist and just the second performer ever to debut at number one. And she ends up doing a remix of that song with Old Dirty Bastard from Wu-Tang Clan. She gets a lot of flak from that,

for that from Columbia. She writes One Sweet Day with Boys to Mills. That song is amazing. That video too always stuck with me because it's just raw footage of them performing

and actually watching it makes you respect and appreciate their vocals even more because you're like watching them sing these insane harmonies and you're just like

holy shit that's real people. That video only came from the fact that they knew that because of their schedules they were not going to be able to record a music video together in the future so they said fuck it

we'll just put cameras in the studio and just get that. It was so effective for that song. Good. And one sweet day, the collaboration with Boys 2 Men also debuted at number one and remained lodged at the top of the charts for a record 16 weeks. And that was up until this year when Old Town Road beat the record. Wow.

And that's so crazy. Fucking year from 1995. Wow. She brings in Germain Dupree for the song Always Be My Baby, which is such a good fucking song. Such a little. Oh, this whole album, my God. And that relationship, that's the beginning. of a beautiful friendship between the two of them.

They collaborate on a bunch of stuff in the future. She was actually a big fan of the song Jump by Chris Cross. Everybody jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. And Mines out of America. And Dupree co-wrote that. So she brought him in. And she ends up, the album drops. She goes on her second tour with a sold-out

Master Square Garden show that was filmed and released. She goes and does shows in Japan, select European countries. And during this tour, she's already working on some for her next album. This album becomes her bestselling to date. It goes certified diamond. And it gets nominated for six different Grammy Awards. It doesn't win, however, a single one.

This is such a good. It's so good. And when you told me about this, Holden, I looked it up and I remember specifically when this happened. Six nominations. And we're talking Mariah Carey, all right? She goes in there, does not win a single award. award and ends up just hating the Grammys because of it.

She said, Because you can watch as each one she loses as she's getting more and more. I think the word is non-surplussed. She said, what can you do? Let me put it this way. I will never be disappointed again. After sitting through that whole show and not winning once, I can so far handle anything.

Go for her. She will not be disappointed again. She performs one sweet day. terrifying. And despite them, she does not perform a single other time again until 2006, when she is nominated for eight awards for the emancipation of Mimi, and she will win three awards during that Grammy. So she literally banned their asses. You cannot get on her bad side. No, man, no. That's a decade. She didn't perform again at the Grammys for a decade. Don't fuck what, go fa. Don't fuck what, huh? And of course, for Daydream, she herself,

which by the way, again, mad fucking props. She directed that rollerblading video. She directed it while being almost the only. That's the one that stuck with me as a kid, that video. It was her concept. I want to be, you know what? Take it back. I still want to be Mariah Carey.

That's not in the past. I still want to be Mariah Carey. And she says that, you know, or it is noted that like that video for her was an expression of her finally starting to gain some freedom in her career. And that's why it feels that way. It feels so free and just excited about the future. It does feel liberating, yeah.

Right. So anyways, yeah, that is going to be a motherfucking daydream, but now we move into Butterfly. And then she also did, Mariah Carey herself did say that she pronounced her sexual blossoming, the beginning of it with Daydream. Yes. And then with Butterfly is when she really,

finds that she says, I'm sexual, says butterfly. But that's not all that I am. Oh, it's not a pussy. It's not all that she is. She's bigger than that. She said she's more broadly attempted to present Mariah as a multi-dimensional human fucking being. She's not just a sexual human.

She's multi-dimensional human fucking being. Wow. So she now has a lot more control and she ends up, she's moving away from a fantasy F. And I think that's a lot of that is more, you know, they're having growing creative differences. She's trying to also force Columbia into letting her do more hip-hop influence stuff. And I think that pulling away from him helps her do that. She works with producers such as Sean Puffy Combs, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott, among many others.

Missy. With a fantasy, she wrote Butterfly, which she has said is her favorite ballad that she has written. And her and Matola during these recording sessions separate. which of course further leads to her feeling of independence, getting away from him. But this is also a time when this separation is being widely reported about in the press. There's all these shitty rumors that all these male producers she's working with, that she's banging them.

Yeah, that's what they're saying, but it's all lies. I mean, it's always that way. Every young actress singer or whatever is always accused of fucking everybody to get to the top because they can't imagine that a woman could just, Just get there on her own. No, of course not. But it took the entirety of Mariah Carey's early career

to break out of the original contracts that she signed. And with the 1997 album Butterfly, it was her statement of true liberation. Because with the exception of The Beautiful Ones, which is a remake of Prince's song, Mariah Carey wrote or crow wrote every single track on Butterfly. Carrie said, in the past, people were scared to let me explore different types of music that I loved and enjoyed.

The studio head saw me as having this instrument, and they wanted to get the most use out of it. There were a lot of people around me who were afraid of change. I was a valuable commodity, and they didn't want to lose that. I was encouraged to act drab, because drab sells records. Bastards. I love it. I mean, when asked why she chose butterfly and how she felt about butterflies, she said I was never actually into butterflies, but I kept hearing this song in my head,

Spread your wings and prepare to fly Because you have become a butterfly And at the time, I was leaving the home where I lived And on the mantle there was a piece That this guy had made And it had a little butterfly in the middle I had just written the song So it felt like a sign

And that was the only thing I took from that house And then it burned to the ground Fuck yeah So the house that she had was terrifying Burn down And I am not of course saying anything, obviously. And no, honestly, I didn't even see anything that said anything, but it is interesting.

It is interesting. It's the only thing she took from the house and then the house burnt down. That's her will. Well, I, she's, I'm saying it. She's a strong witch. Oh, yeah. She hated this motherfucker. Yeah.

She really hated this motherfucker. So, also on Butterfly is a song called Breakdown. Jackie, take it away. Break, break down. Instead of breaking me out down. It's one of my favorite songs. Please, please listen to it. She does it with Crazy Bones from Bone Thugs in Harmony,

and Mariah Carey actually says herself, Breakdown is one of her favorite songs. She said, just the layering of the vocals and working with particularly Crazy Bone, his style, his flow, just his cadence. I was so inspired by them. I wrote my part and then they came in and did their part and we put it together,

but I never would have been able to have that experimental time on an album before that. So Crazy Bone himself, So all of this just really, it truly delights me. So Crazy Bone from Bone Thugs and Harmie says, we got to the studio. And you know how people say they laid it out in a silver platter? She literally had a silver platter with Hennessy and marijuana for us. So we were like, ah shit, oh man, Mariah's cool as hell.

They indulged in so much that they passed out. And when Mariah came back in, she asked their manager, is this normal? And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll wake up in a minute. trust me. So he came in and woke us up and we woke right up. She played the beat for us and as soon as she played it, we were like, oh, this is our lane right here. This is perfect for us. We were shocked that she had so much knowledge of who we were. She was like, I had to meet the guys who were blocking me on the charts. She was very laid back and like one of the homies. What I'd like is that this is where

she really introduced the idea that before breakdown, which is one of the finest songs, I think that she's ever made. You'd never heard a singer flow like Mariah does when she mimics the staccato vocal style of bone thugs and harmony, whose crazy bone and wishbone guest on the track, not merely singing over a hip-hop beat the way most people fused hip-hop and R&B in that era. Mariah delivered a more melodic version of Bone Thugs sing-song delivery, sometimes in double time. So this not only made her step up in the pop world, but it also gained her insane respect. in the hip hop in the R&B world, which that's awesome. She made that.

Isn't that insane? And it's because of that, I mean, you know, and we'll get into Rainbow next in the next episode. But, you know, all of a sudden now we've got Snoop Dogg in the mix. We've got JZ in the mix. We've got major, major entities in hip hop at that time and even now collaborating with her. So obviously this was such a huge step forward and her career, much to this show. grin of Columbia Records. Take your fucking wings and prepare to fly.

You and me come a butterfly. And that is what's going to call it for this episode. We will get into her exodus from Columbia, her reinvention of herself, her crazy wild ride in her later years with mental health issues, with her sister. We didn't even yet get into any of that stuff. Her next couple of marriages, her children, how she truly became the queen of Christmas.

It's insane. I'm looking forward to this section. It's, I mean, this is the inspirational part of it. And next week is the Nan Mariah, you're so crazy. All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us. And, hey, we'll talk to you next week. We'll talk to you next week.

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