The best things I can say about this era is that her voice was flawless and she looked gorgeous throughout. Other than that, Music Box is my least favorite album from her and I'll continue to wait for Daydream and Butterfly.
Review/Pop; Venturing Outside the Studio, Mariah Carey Proves Her Mettle
By JON PARELES
Published: December 13, 1993
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If Ms. Carey was nervous, it didn't show. Smiling and strutting across the stage, moving easily to the music without obvious choreography, she combined the assurance of an arena-scale pop performer with the casualness of a suburban girl-next-door. Chatting with an audience that was proud to claim her as a Long Island native, she announced that profits from her current single, "Hero," would be donated to the families of victims of last week's rampage on the Long Island Rail Road.
Great read! Thanks for posting. This section stood out to me because we still see evidence of her casual nature with fans when she's performing in concert. I think people today just dont know that for Mariah, her concerts arent really that "serious" but really girl next door casual. Her "diva" is really used for the comedy.
I still wanna talk about Emotions tbh Idk why but out of all her albums Emotions creates the most imagery for me. Maybe it's because I have more memories associated with the album.
As for Music Box, it certainly lacks the fire and passion of her previous albums but Music Box and Everything Fades Away are beautiful.
Do You Think of Me is also one of her greatest songs ever, it's so haunting and wistful. Sometimes I think the chorus is even a little mocking/taunting.
Music Box was a behemoth for Mariah in terms of sales and success but outside of 3 songs I never really felt a connection to the album. My favorite 3 from the album of course are Dreamlover, Hero and Anytime You Need A Friend.
Dreamlover was the first video I vaguely remember as a kid that regularly came on MTV (when MTV actually played music videos). I had the biggest crush on her tbh! She looked so perfect and the video was just really sweet and classy.
And of course the song was on the radio constantly! You couldn't take a drive or go to the mall without hearing it.
and then there was Hero. When I was kid going through some "stuff" in school I just remember playing the song over and over again when I bought her number 1's cassette. (My first ever cassette btw) Hero will likely go down as her most classic song outside of All I Want For Christmas.
Music Box is nowhere near as bad as the lambs make it out to be. Without You, AYNAF, Dreamlover, Never Forget You, Just to Hold You Once Again, Do You Think of Me, Now That I Know, even Hero sometimes
I found an interesting article regarding Music Box but it's a lil bit too long so I decided to divide into some parts
Mariah Carey’s Music Box LP (1993) revisited with co-writer Walter Afanasieff | Return To The Classics (PART I)
July 3rd, 2011 | by Chris Williams
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Music Box was released on August 31, 1993 by Columbia Records. After selling over 15 million copies of her self-titled debut album, Mariah Carey decided to experiment with her sound for her follow up album, Emotions, but failed to make the same type of commercial impact as her debut. Carey returned to the studio determined to broaden her listening audience and produce another high quality album not only for herself, but for legions of her beloved fans. As a result, her career ascended to extraordinary heights.
This album would see Carey asserting her control over all aspects of her musical sound. It was mutually agreed upon to take her sound in a more pop-friendly direction over the heavy R&B/Soul influence from her previous album. Alongside her writing partner Walter Afanasieff, Carey was able to carve out a niche where many of her contemporaries failed to. Music Box introduced a young producer named David Hall, welcomed back the long time production duo of David Cole and Robert Cliviles and ushered in the arrival of Babyface and Daryl Simmons on a Mariah Carey led album. Carey’s five octave range was on full display once again, which left an indelible mark on the majority of songs on the album.
Mariah Carey came from a musical family where her mother was a singer for the New York City Opera as well as being a vocal coach. At the tender age of 3, she began singing and by the time she reached high school Carey was cutting records as a demo singer for a local recording studio in her native Long Island. It was during this juncture where she received tutelage from the legendary Gavin Christopher and began writing with Ben Marguiles. From her association with Marguiles, Carey was able to write and record songs for her demo tape, which ended up on her debut album, Mariah Carey.
As the story goes, Carey would go on to become a backup vocalist for then popular recording artist, Brenda K. Starr. At a industry party in 1988, Carey’s demo tape ended up in the hands of Columbia Records executive, Tommy Mottola. She eventually received her big break in the fall of the same year. Her debut album Mariah Carey only foreshadowed what was to come and three years later she found herself in a league of her own.
Between the months of August 1992-May 1993, Music Box was recorded at Right Track Studios in Manhattan, New York and The Plant Studios in Sausalito, California.
SoulCulture recently sat down with Walter Afanasieff, the co-writer, producer and studio musician for the album to share their blueprint for creating a classic record.
Afanasieff remembers how he first became involved with Carey on her previous albums.
“I actually did work on her first album,” says Afanasieff. “I was sort of the arranger and co-producer to a gentleman named Narada Michael Walden. I was his right hand guy, his keyboardist, co-writer, arranger, co-producer sort of guy. He was hired to do a few songs on the first album. We actually worked on the “Vision of Love” song from the first album as well as “Someday” and “I Don’t Wanna Cry.”
I was involved at that time as a musician. When Tommy Mottola and Mariah were in California working on her album with Narada Michael Walden, we all met. In the meeting with Tommy and Mariah, we exchanged the knowledge that this was a cool opportunity for us to be acquainted and to continue working together.
“Tommy gave me a challenge and he said, ‘We have one more song that we want to record for the first album and the album is already pressed and in the CD cases, but I’m going to halt the presses. And if this song that you do, Walter turns out good we’ll put that song on the first album again on the second pressing.’ So he gave me this challenge and I delivered the last song for that first album called “Love Takes Time.” “Love Takes Time” ended up being Mariah’s second single, which went to number 1 after “Vision of Love” went to number one. It was my first production and that’s how we started our relationship.
“I started to score points with her and them because they thought I was good enough to become her writing partner. So her and I started to write for her second album. The meeting of the first, led to writing on the second and that led to Music Box being a really serious music collaboration. The first album where we worked very hard and closely together was the Emotions album and there we ironed out some of the creases and it wasn’t perfect. We weren’t exactly on point yet, but with Music Box we were definitely on point.”
Afanasieff describes the direction they wanted to pursue for the album.
“It was never a purposeful idea, it was always about what Mariah was writing and feeling,” says Afanasieff. “Mariah is a simple songwriter. She writes about what she’s going through. She writes about her feelings and she writes about the climate the world is in musically. So at the time Music Box was written for and being put together, it was all about what we were doing. It had nothing to do with a direction decision. She simply went through her first album and on her second album, Emotions we tried a lot of different things that we were writing and feeling and we started writing different songs after that and we got into a different spirit, which led to the Music Box record.
“We didn’t have any orders coming down from the music executives to tell us to make the record more pop, more soulful or softer, nothing like that. It was strictly about what she was feeling and how she felt is how we wrote the songs and those ended up being on the album. I would write something at the piano with her and the challenge at that point becomes how do we produce a modern, hit sounding track based on what we just finished writing at the piano. So that production and arrangement is what makes the song sound the way it sounds. She would take the tracks that I did for her and she would vibe on those. And then she would layer her vocals a certain way and it was just a building process from there that you take step by step. It was never a decision that it was going to be a certain way before it happened.
He continues, “Mariah is her own melodious. She is the one that comes up with the vocal. Whenever she ends up singing what you hear her singing it comes from her. The writing partnership that her and I had and I can’t speak for her other songwriting partners, but if you could see us in the room I would hit a chord and play a little melody on the piano and she would say, ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ and she would sing that melody and then she adds a little bit to it. I would then play it back and then she would say, ‘Yea, that’s good’ so it instantly becomes this partnership where eventually she’ll have a melody and then the melody would prompt her to start thinking about this feeling she wants to put into words. This would eventually become the theme of the song. Melody wise it was also a partnership that developed her melodies and it was really her that took the direction lyrically. She would write the majority of the lyrics herself.”
Music Box was responsible for what may potentially be in my opinion her best live performance ever.
Music Box as a whole is perfection. Not one dud track (even the schmaltzy ballad that is Hero is bearable (95% off the time)). The International bonus track Everything Fades Away is bliss.