So I just created two playlists: one from all of Mariah's openers called
"Welcome to a Day of My Life" and her closers called
"Till the End of Time", and let me tell you, they both sound awesome legitimate compilations!!
So I did the comparisons again:
Vision of Love vs Love Takes Time
Emotions vs The Wind
Dreamlover vs
All I've Ever Wanted
Fantasy vs Looking In
Honey vs Outside
Heartbreaker vs
Thank God I Found You
Loverboy (Remix) vs Loverboy
Through The Rain vs Through The Rain (Remix)
It's Like That vs
Fly Like a Bird
Migrate vs
I Wish You Well
Betcha Gon' Know vs I Wanna Know What Love Is
Cry vs Heavenly
Anyways I'd recommend Daydream and TEOM if we're talking about accessible. My favorite Mariah albums however are probably her debut, Butterfly and The Elusive Chanteuse(her "second" magnum opus.)
I like how she's pulling her hair 
