Mariah Carey born March   is a RB and pop singer songwriter record producer and occasional actress of the s and s Making her debut in  she became the most successful and bestselling artist of the coming decade according to Billboard magazine and the World Music Awards In  the World Music Awards show named her the bestselling female recording artist of all time  Carey is noted for her distinctive singing style that makes frequent use of melismas and other ornamentation and she possesses a fiveoctave vocal range She released a throng of numberone hits while signed to Columbia Records formerly run by thenhusband Tommy Mottola and several of them broke chart records By the turn of the millennium however Careys popularity with critics and the public had entered decline and she was dropped from her new record label following a highlypublicised physical breakdown and an unsuccessful foray into film In  Carey returned to the forefront of popular music with the release of the multiplatinum The Emancipation of Mimi  Biography and music career Early life and discovery Carey was born in Huntington New York She is the third and youngest child of Patricia Hickey a Catholic opera singer and voice coach of IrishAmerican descent and Alfred Roy Carey n Nez an aeronautical engineer of AfroVenezuelan descent She was named after the song And They Call the Wind Maria from the musical Paint Your Wagon Careys siblings include her older sister Alison and her older brother Morgan As a multiracial family the Carey household was met with racial slurs hostility and sometimes violence causing the family to move frequently around the New York area The strain on the family led to the divorce of Careys parents when she was three years old Carey had little contact with her father and her mother worked several jobs to support the family  Spending much of her time at home alone Carey turned to music as an outlet She began singing at the age of four and first performed in public at the age of six She began writing songs while in grade school and her mother and the members of her opera company were impressed with her talents when Carey hit a cue note that her mother had missed Carey attended and graduated from Oldfield Middle School and Harborfields High School in Greenlawn New York although she was frequently absent due to efforts to break into the music business After moving to New York City she eventually landed a role as a backup singer for Brenda K Starr  In  Carey met Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola at a party where Starr gave him a demo tape Mottola played the tape while leaving the party and was very impressed by what he heard He returned to the party to find Carey but she had already left Nevertheless Mottola tracked her down and signed her to a recording contract This Cinderellalike story became part of the standard publicity surrounding Careys entrance into the industry   Early commercial success Careys professional music career began with the release of her eponymous debut album Mariah Carey in  Carey cowrote all of the compositions on her debut album with songwriterproducers such as Ric Wake and Rhett Lawrence and would continue to cowrite nearly all of her material for the rest of her career The album debuted low on the US Billboard  chart but ascended to number one a year after its release where it remained for eleven weeks It produced four numberone singles making Carey a star in the United States Elsewhere however the albums success was limited In  Carey won her first and only Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her debut single Vision of Love   in   Emotions Careys second album was released in the fall of  to critical and commercial success Its first single the title track Emotions gave Carey the distinction of being the only recording act in history to have their first five singles reach numberone on the US Hot  chart The albums followup singles were less successful only reaching the top five Carey had been lobbying for the ability to produce her own songs and beginning with Emotions would coproduce most of her material She would also begin writing and producing for other artists such as Penny Ford and Daryl Hall within the coming year  Although she had done a few concert dates to support her first album Carey did not embark on any major public tours Her first widelyseen concert performance was on the television show MTV Unplugged in May  and her performance proved that her vocal abilities were not as some had previously speculated simulated using studio techniques In addition to acoustic versions of some of her earlier songs Carey and backup singer Trey Lorenz premiered a cover of The Jackson s Ill Be There on the special Released as a single it became Careys sixth numberone hit in the US and led to a record deal for Lorenz whose debut album Carey produced Her Unplugged performance was later released by Columbia on the EP MTV Unplugged   Worldwide success Carey then  and Tommy Mottola  had become romantically involved and in June  they were married in an Episcopalian ceremony in Manhattan Her third studio album Music Box was released later that year and became her most successful album worldwide Lead single Dreamlover was her longest stayer yet at the numberone spot in the US eight weeks Hero became her first Christmas numberone single in the US and Without You a cover of the Badfinger song went to numberone in the UK However Anytime You Need a Friend became Careys first single to peak outside of the US top ten and her attempt at a mellower work than her previous efforts raised eyebrows with some critics Ron Wynn said Carey blended into the background and let the tracks guide her instead of pushing and exploding through them and Stephen Holden criticised Careys lyrics which are made up entirely of pop and soul clichs   recording One Sweet Day  one of Careys most successful singles  Following a hit duet with Luther Vandross of Diana Ross Endless Love Carey released the holiday album Merry Christmas in late  In addition to covers of traditional Christmas songs it contained a very successful original holiday song All I Want for Christmas Is You The single became her first numberone hit in Japan and was described as a wellcrafted Phil Spector tribute by Roch Parisien who dismissed Merry Christmas as an otherwise vanilla set The album was popular with the public becoming one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time  In  Carey released Daydream which combined the pop sensibilities of Music Box with modern RBhiphop influences It became her largestselling LP in the US and its singles achieved similar success lead single Fantasy became only the second single to debut at numberone in the US and spent twelve weeks at number one in Canada One Sweet Day a duet with Boyz II Men spent a stillrecord sixteen weeks at numberone and Always Be My Baby topped the Hot  yearend airplay charts in  Critics such as Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Bill Lamb embraced Daydream as her finest album yet at the time and it was named one of the best albums of the year by publications such as the New York Times and TIME mag