Mariah Carey's Debut
''It was incredible, like in a movie,'' Mariah Carey said the other day. The 20-year-old singer and songwriter from New York City was recalling the moment a year and a half ago when she was discovered by Tommy Mottola, the president of CBS Records, who has made her the company's pop Cinderella of 1990.
This week her debut album, ''Mariah Carey,'' was released by Columbia Records with more fanfare and promotional hoopla than the label has bestowed on a new young talent in years. ''Vision of Love,'' a single that was released three weeks before the album, has already climbed to No. 38 on Billboard's pop singles chart.
''Mariah Carey'' introduces a pop-gospel voice that is impressive in its power and range and that has elaborate vocal embellishments strikingly reminiscent of Whitney Houston's. In fact, Narada Michael Walden, one of three producers who worked on Ms. Carey's record, also produced Ms. Houston's 1985 debut.
The singer, who lives with two cats in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, is one of three children of Patricia Carey, a vocal coach who used to sing with the New York City Opera. Mariah Carey's parents divorced when she was 3. In 1987, she graduated from Harborfields High School in Huntington, L.I.
Although she was exposed to opera while growing up, Ms. Carey said she was never drawn to it, preferring ''freer music.'' Her influences included her mother's Billie Holiday records and her brother and sister's Al Green, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder albums. Above all, she has been drawn to the gospel of Aretha Franklin, the Clark Sisters, the Edwin Hawkins Singers and Shirley Caesar.
Ms. Carey said she had wanted to be a professional singer since she was 4 years old. She began working with musicians when she was 13, and at 16 she started writing songs with Ben Margulies, a young composer who collaborated with her on six of her album's 11 songs. Her big break came in November 1988 when Brenda K. Starr, a dance-pop vocalist with whom she had worked in clubs, took her to a party to celebrate the inauguration of WTG Records, a CBS-affiliated label run by Jerry Greenberg.
''Brenda walked up to Jerry, introduced me and said, 'This is my friend Mariah, she's 18 and writes her own music,' '' Ms. Carey recalled. ''Tommy Mottola was there, and when Brenda handed my tape to Jerry, Tommy grabbed it away from him. When Brenda told me who he was, I was really nervous. I just said hi and walked away. He went out to his car and put it on and listened to the first two songs and turned around and came back to find me, but I was gone. There was no phone number on the tape. That Monday, he contacted Brenda's manager, and Brenda called me to tell me he had heard it. The next day I went up to CBS with my mom, and we talked he said he wanted to give me a record deal and put me on Columbia.''
''Mariah Carey'' introduces a pop-gospel voice that is impressive in its power and range and that has elaborate vocal embellishments strikingly reminiscent of Whitney Houston's. In fact, Narada Michael Walden, one of three producers who worked on Ms. Carey's record, also produced Ms. Houston's 1985 debut.
The comparison between Mariah and Whitney are unbearable when Mariah debuted her first record. Ariana-Mariah comparison teas
The comparison between Mariah and Whitney are unbearable when Mariah debuted her first record. Ariana-Mariah comparison teas
It's interesting right?!
I think Sony/Columbia really needed a Voice as big as Whitney's because the marketplace was open for these kinds of voices. I think the marketplace really allowed people to pin these girls up against each other from the very beginning. Certainly, Mariah having some of the same Producers as Whitney didnt help the comparison matters.
But its clear that Sony thought they struck gold with Mariah. I have an article from 1991 i'll post later about the amount of dollars that went into her debut album's marketing scheme.
I think Sony/Columbia really needed a Voice as big as Whitney's because the marketplace was open for these kinds of voices. I think the marketplace really allowed people to pin these girls up against each other from the very beginning. Certainly, Mariah having some of the same Producers as Whitney didnt help the comparison matters.
But its clear that Sony thought they struck gold with Mariah. I have an article from 1991 i'll post later about the amount of dollars that went into her debut album's marketing scheme.
It birthed Whitney's iconic "I don't think of her" shade
POP MUSIC; The Marketing Muscle Behind Mariah Carey
By FRED GOODMAN;
Published: April 14, 1991
Full article: http://t.co/vQc0F3nOf3
Quote:
When Mariah Carey recently won two Grammy Awards, it was a fairy-tale ending for a pop-music Cinderella. The 21-year-old New Yorker was a complete unknown just a year ago. But bolstered by her Grammys -- for best new artist and best female pop performance -- her debut album has held the No. 1 spot on the pop charts for the last seven weeks. "Mariah Carey" has sold more than four million copies in the United States (seven million worldwide, according to Columbia Records) and produced three No. 1 singles -- "Vision of Love," "Love Takes Time" and "Someday."
Ms. Carey's seeming overnight success has been anything but simple fortune. Once convinced of the singer's potential, Sony (formerly CBS Records) threw its full production and promotion weight behind her. Within the industry, her marketing campaign has been rumored to be one of the most expensive for a new artist. Columbia will not say how much the label has spent or discuss specifics, but making her a star clearly became important to Sony's top record executives.
Ultimately, Ms. Carey's success says as much about the talents of a record company as those of the singer. It also shows how record companies are increasingly willing to bet heavily on one artist in hopes of realizing a big payoff. In the industry, such performers are referred to as priority artists, a term record companies abhor, since it suggests that not all artists are treated equally. But the problem is often one of numbers: radio stations can add just a few new singles each week, and labels must decide which records to push.
Ms. Carey, an attractive and able pop singer with a five-octave range, was the ideal candidate to fill a hole in the company's artist roster. Although Sony has enjoyed some success in the last two years with female pop singers like Martika, Basia and Gloria Estefan, the company has lacked a big-selling pop diva on the order of Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Madonna or Paula Abdul.
For their would-be star, Sony's top executives took an unusually active role. Mr. Mottola and Don Ienner, president of Columbia Records, personally selected the producers. Mr. Ienner, who had only recently joined Columbia after heading the promotion department at Arista Records, suggested Narada Michael Walden and Ric Wake. Each had crafted hit records for Arista's two biggest-selling female pop singers, Whitney Houston and Taylor Dayne, respectively.
"Tommy told me, 'She's incredible; you just won't believe how good she is,' " Mr. Wake recalls. "As far as he was concerned, it was the Second Coming."
Mr. Mottola, the album's executive producer, declines to discuss his involvement in the making and marketing of "Mariah Carey," calling such information proprietary. "To give away our trade secrets would not be to my advantage" is all he will say. Mr. Mottola has also denied published reports linking him romantically to the singer.
But he does say: "When I heard and saw Mariah, there was absolutely no doubt she was in every way destined for stardom."
Indeed, Columbia took meticulous care in fashioning a record capable of garnering maximum radio exposure. "Mariah Carey" bears the unmistakable stylistic stamp of Ms. Houston, one of the biggest selling pop singers of the last decade. In fact, Ms. Houston's own career may be feeling the squeeze of Ms. Carey's success: the last Houston album, "I'm Your Baby Tonight," is selling at a slower pace than its two predecessors.
But even before the album was completed, the CBS marketing department began giving Ms. Carey the same attention she was receiving in the studio. Months in advance, they began laying the groundwork for a long run on the pop charts. "We had numerous, numerous meetings about Mariah way in advance of the album's release," says Jane Berk, the former director of marketing for CBS Records. The strategy was to create a pre-release buzz among record stores and radio stations. "It was about carefully planting seeds in the industry and nurturing their development at every stage," Ms. Berk says. "It was very strategically planned. We went out on a limb, and it was worth taking the risk."
For Ms. Carey, the first step was to perform at the National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention in Los Angeles last spring to introduce her to executives from the country's biggest record-store chains. If Ms. Carey had been unable to impress that crowd, her chances for a hit would have been seriously hindered.
Howard Appelbaum, vice president and head buyer of the 33-store Kemp Mill record chain in Maryland, recalls Ms. Carey's performance as "good, not incredible." But he says that Columbia -- which had primed the audience with a video presentation on Ms. Carey -- was still able to whip up tremendous excitement. "The energy level in that room was astounding," Mr. Appelbaum says of Columbia's buildup.
Mr. Appelbaum became more convinced of her potential a few weeks later when Ms. Carey performed for retailers and radio personnel in Philadelphia. The show was part of an unusual promotional swing -- a nine-city tour Columbia organized for Ms. Carey while soliciting orders for her album.
"Most labels send out tapes to sales people and hope they listen," Ms. Berk says. "We wanted to make sure people listened to Mariah -- so we sent her."
It worked. After hearing Ms. Carey perform a brief set, Mr. Appelbaum, for one, increased his chain's order for the album.
The promotional tour also paid dividends with radio stations...[and]...helped establish Ms. Carey's commercial legitimacy.
Once "Mariah Carey" was a hit, the label continued its financial push. The album has been featured in almost all the label's consumer advertisements; Columbia has also maintained a high profile for "Mariah Carey" in the industry, with up to five full-page ads in Billboard since the record's release. Store displays -- an expensive and effective way to reach consumers -- has also played an extensive part in Ms. Carey's campaign. (Some stores receive thousands of dollars in merchandise in exchange for window and floor displays.)
Through packaging and videos, Ms. Carey has also been able to solidify her reputation as a vocal talent, despite the fact that she has never toured.
"The visual element was a very, very, very important part of exposing this artist," says Ms. Berk. Pictures of Ms. Carey crooning into an old-fashioned microphone were widely used in her promotion, on the back cover of her album and in her first video, for "Vision of Love." (A spokesman denies published reports that the video clip cost as much as $450,000.)
"What we were selling was unmistakably about an artist who was a singer," Ms. Berk adds. Ms. Carey was also booked on "The Arsenio Hall Show" before the album was released. While still an unknown, she sang on a broadcast of last year's N.B.A. championship playoffs. Getting that kind of exposure for a new artist is difficult, and Mr. Mottola is credited with using his considerable muscle to arrange the appearances.
In addition to overseeing production of her album, arranging her television appearances and helping marshal Sony's promotional might behind her, Mr. Mottola introduced Ms. Carey to Champion, the artist-management company he helped found and held an interest in. Mr. Mottola says he has since divested himself of interest in Champion, who has represented Ms. Carey since 1989.
How lucrative her success has been for Sony is impossible to determine. But the elaborate campaign has given the company a best-selling pop singer and positioned Ms. Carey for a long career, although there is certainly no guarantee she will find favor with fans the next time out.