Album Information: Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey is the self-titled debut album by American singer Mariah Carey, released in the United States on June 12, 1990 by Columbia Records. Although sales were initially slow, it made Carey a star in her home country and yielded four number 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, with the album itself spending eleven weeks at the top of the Billboard 200. The RIAA certified Mariah Carey 9x platinum on December 15, 1999, denoting 9 million shipments in the United States. It is Carey's third best-selling album in the U.S. after Daydream (1995) and Music Box (1993). The album has sold an estimated 15 million copies worldwide.

WRITING & RECORDING
Tommy Mottola and other Sony/Columbia executives believed that Carey had high potential to be the next big superstar, so her debut album was carefully co-ordinated by a panel of executives, and as a result it was deemed unwise for Carey and Margulies to produce. Mottola and the committee wanted a debut album with a more contemporary sound (much like Whitney Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston, which many critics called Carey out for making her album too similar to) that would cross over and appeal to both the R&B and mainstream music markets.

The committee enlisted some of the top producers of the time to produce the songs that Margulies and Carey had written, and to produce and co-write new material with Carey herself. The producers included Rhett Lawrence, Ric Wake and Narada Michael Walden, and only six of the nearly twenty songs that Carey and Margulies had written made the album initially.

RECEPTION
In order to raise her profile before the release of Mariah Carey, Carey performed three songs, in front of an invitation-only audience at an intimate soirée. She made her television debut on The Arsenio Hall Show, and Columbia Records arranged for her to perform "America the Beautiful" at the NBA Finals. Carey was also asked to go on tour, but she refused as she suffered from severe stage fright at the time.

Mariah Carey entered the U.S. Billboard 200 at number 80 and entered the top twenty in its fourth week. It reached number 1 in its forty-third week, and stayed there for eleven consecutive weeks - to date, the longest stay at number 1 in Carey's career. It remained in the top twenty for sixty-five weeks and on the Billboard 200 for 113 weeks, and it was certified 9x platinunm by the RIAA on December 15, 1999. It is one of the best-selling debut albums in the country, and by March 2006 it had sold over nine million copies in the U.S. It was also the best-selling album of 1991 in the United States.

Mariah Carey was moderately successful for a debut album outside the U.S. It experienced most success in Canada, where it topped the chart for a week and went 7x platinum. The album peaked at number 6 in the United Kingdom and Australia; in the former country it spent thirty-six weeks in the top seventy-five, and in the latter it went 2x platinum. Its success in Brazil and across continental Europe was limited. As of November 2005, the album had sold approximately 15 million copies worldwide.

The singles released from Mariah Carey were unsuccessful in most music markets but became very popular in the U.S., making Carey a star there. "Vision of Love" became the first of many Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hits for Carey, and topped the charts in Canada and New Zealand. "Love Takes Time" reached number 1 in both the U.S. and Canada, but was only a moderate success in other markets and in some, such as the UK, it failed. "Someday" became another number 1 for Carey in the U.S. but only reached the top five in Canada, and elsewhere it had little impact. "I Don't Wanna Cry" tied Carey with The Jackson 5 as the act to have their first four singles hit number 1 in the U.S., but it had minimal success in other markets except Canada, where it peaked within the top ten. "There's Got to Be a Way" was released in some European countries such as the UK, where it missed the top forty. A fifth single, "Prisoner", was scheduled for release in the U.S. after "I Don't Wanna Cry", but because of the impending release of Carey's second album Emotions, it wasn't released.

Mariah Carey was nominated for the 1991 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, while "Vision of Love" received nominations in the categories of Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Carey won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and also received the award for Best New Artist.