Mariah Carey - #1’s

It’s all of Mariah Carey’s number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100… plus four other songs. Surprisingly, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” isn’t on here (though it is on the Japanese version), but “When You Believe”, the duet with Whitney Houston from The Prince of Egypt, is. We don’t have animated films that are structured around having an orchestral gospel song punctuate an emotional high point anymore. Are there any high profile, show-off divas like Carey, Houston, or Celine Dion who have made waves in the past decade? I don’t know, but this compilation album is a good argument for it.

I did not recognize all of these songs, but I did recognize the production style. I am not particularly nostalgic for the digital tape+keyboard workstation era of production. Carey’s ballads and love songs are mostly set to transparent synth strings and bass, dated drums, and burbling single-line guitars (and like I said above, the dreaded DX7 e-piano patch). The most interesting instrumental hook on any song is sampled from Tom Tom Club on “Fantasy”. However, that’s okay, mostly because these songs are all about Mariah.

I don’t really need to sell you on how good Mariah Carey is at singing. I can safely assume you are familiar with her work. She is the best-selling female artist of all time. You almost certainly picked up, at the very least, “Emotions” and “Always Be My Baby”, plus some of her post-1999 hits which don’t appear here. Not only is she one of the best technical singers to make waves on the pop charts, but she’s able to do so with soul and emotion. Music is about feeling, and even with dated and stilted production, Mariah Carey is able to make me feel somehting. It helps that underneath that 90s new jack lacquer the songs themselves are great.

Carey is most interesting to me when she kicks up the tempo and indulges her R&B side, or when she picks up a rapper on a feature. Her ballads can drag a little bit, and they’re mostly relegated to the tail end of the album for a reason. At 72 minutes long, Carey is on the edge of overstaying her welcome, but because she covers so many styles and so many feelings, and because there are no real misses in this greatest hits compilation, I can’t complain.

#1's by Mariah Carey is a good album, and I like it.