What Happened to Mariah Carey's Voice? - My analysis
NOTE: THIS IS A LENGTHY READ, FOR THOSE INTRIGUED BY MARIAH'S MYSTERIOUS VOCAL DETERIORATION
Lauded for her limitless range, impeccable technique, and gravity-defying vocal runs, Mariah Carey has long proved herself worthy of the world record title "Songbird Supreme." At her peak, Ms. Carey's voice box was an unstoppable, untameable and unwavering force; the Jimmy Hendrix of singing. She has inspired countless vocalists around the world: from wannabe "singers" screaming out 'Hero' on American Idol to teenage girls belting 'Vision of Love' into their hairbrush.
Since Mariah Carey's successful debut in 1990, many have witnessed the highs and lows throughout her illustrious two decade career: turning from the humble girl next door into an emancipated diva; a not-so-glittering film debut and the highly publicized struggles of her personal and professional life. But the most baffling and saddening changes that we, her fans, have noticed are those of her seemingly perfect voice. Switching from a flawless 1995 live rendition of 'Make It Happen' to an unflattering 2012 studio recording of 'Triumphant (Get 'Em)', it's difficult not to ask the question... "What's Happened to Mariah Carey's Voice?"
It's undeniable that the voice we now hear, straining to hit the notes the Mariah of the 90s would be able to hit in her sleep, is sharply different from the voice we heard belt and whistle out those high notes in such hits as 'Hero' and 'Vision of Love'. But how can such a practically flawless voice deteriorate so drastically? Is it her nodules? Is it her overuse of her voice? Have her vocal folds weakened as she's aged? From my point of view, these are combining factors that have contributed to Mariah's steady vocal decline.
Mariah has always been very vocal about her nodules: "they're the reason why I have the high register and the belting register and I can still be husky. A lot of people couldn't sing through the nodules the way I do; I've learned to sing through my vocal cords." When she words it like that, it paints the wrong picture of what nodules are. For Mariah, they have aided her vocal folds since she was a child, granting her the ability to rival the notes on both ends of a piano. However, to most singers nodules do to vocal folds what rust does to metal: destruction. Nodules are solid masses of tissue, usually the result of overusing the voice, that prevent the vocal folds from closing properly, and so a huskier sound - Mariah's natural speaking voice - is the result. Additionally, nodules force the singer to strain so they can hit those crystal clear high belts - the kind Mariah is famed for. In order to prevent nodules from forming, a singer must provide themselves adequate rest and vocal rehabilitation (vocal training/speech therapy), or in the more severe cases, risky surgery (see Julie Andrews). The potential problem this poses for Mariah is a lose-lose situation: she can't utilize her gift without the nodules, but she'll damage her gift with them. Of course, this kind of damage doesn't just happen overnight, it works at a steady pace: if you injure your ankle and don't rest it, every time you walk on it will cause more and more damage. As examples of Mariah's vocal decline, I have used two performances of 'Hero' below, taken from her 'Daydream Tour' in 1996 and 'Butterfly Tour' in 1998, for comparison.
'Hero' - Daydream Tour, year 1996: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLy3t-o2_dc
'Hero' - Butterfly Tour, year 1998: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0N7unqHATI&t=21m38s
These two performances of the same song, just less than two years apart, make for such a harsh difference in her vocal tone, range, and technique. In the 1996 performance, both her speaking and singing voice is bright and high: for the climax starting at 2:48, she is able to effortlessly belt E5, F5 and even G5 notes (oddly enough, far better than she could at the start of her career), in addition to swiftly transitioning between registers; going from low resonating belt to a high whisper in the space of a word. In her 1998 performance, focusing on the climax starting at 24:12, her entire voice has become strained and hoarse: her stamina and ability to belt are severely hindered, and she struggles to hit belted notes above a C5 without sounding coarse and forced (see the final "You know you can SURVIVE!" where she strains for and misses the F5 used for the same lyric in the Daydream Tour performance), in addition to skipping specific notes she can't hit easily any more. When compared together, these performances somewhat counter the argument that her nodules are to blame for her sudden deterioration, as nodules, in theory, should not cause such a drastic change to her voice in such a short period of time, especially if she's been singing through them since childhood. That said, they are no doubt a significant contributor to her vocal decline overall.
Another aspect of Mariah's voice that I believe has aided her deterioration is technique. She may sound incredible when she sings, but that doesn't mean she's doing so in a healthy way. For the most part, Mariah has a very healthy technique: her larynx is always in neutral position, except for when she sings in her lower register. Incorrect positioning of the larynx can easily damage your voice. Think of it this way: if you continuously lift up heavy boxes without positioning your back properly, you're going to wake up feeling achey and sore. A similar thing happens if the larynx isn't positioned correctly when singing, only it's more difficult to tell if there's a problem. Mariah frequently utilizes her lower register, specifically mixing it with belting in songs like 'Without You'.
Mariah has stated she knows her limits when it comes to her belts in the lower register, but the fact that her larynx is usually forced whenever she sings in it has caused it to become worn and distended, explaining how in recent years her low notes sound tired and hoarse. Although her larynx is in a healthy, neutral position for the rest of her range (including her whistle register, which she enters with the assistance of her nodules to sing through the very top of her vocal folds), a lot of constriction can be heard through in her voice, particularly at the start of her career. Being an R&B/Soul singer, Mariah frequently uses a technique known as "curbing" which is used to create metallic sounds on medium volume singing (so basically, more powerful, resonating and soulful belts), and so uses more constriction to create such a sound than she probably should. "Constriction" refers to the muscles beyond the vocal folds closing and tightening up, creating a tense and somewhat raspy sound. By using so much constriction, Mariah is over working her false vocal folds (the muscle area above the actual vocal folds) and not allowing them to vibrate as freely as they should be able to. Her constriction ascends as she moves up her belting range, ultimately making notes beyond D5 sound "scratchy". Additionally, when Mariah started utilizing her self-proclaimed "whisper register" on her 1997 album 'Butterfly', she gave herself additional problems. When you constrict your vocal folds and begin talking normally, it will sound a bit like you're whispering, so the fact that Mariah uses this whisper register so much means she had begun constricting in her head voice too. Furthermore, the only part of her singing where she doesn't constrict is her lower register, which is unfortunately where she suffers from a misplaced larynx. Combining this with the constriction her nodules will already hold over the actual folds themselves creates a very damaging effect. It's an unfortunate habit that Mariah has used throughout her entire singing career, and as her voice as deteriorated more and more she is forced to use such constriction to hit higher notes. This is most likely why she lip-syncs so much, particularly to her older songs, because she can no longer hit such notes without putting severe strain on her vocal folds, and the many muscles that work with them.
In the two performances of 'Vision of Love' below, from 1990 and 2005 respectively, her use of constriction to achieve curbing is still more or less the same, only she has to work five times as hard at it in the 2005 performance. Both performances are fully live, so a clear comparison is fairly identifiable.
'Vision of Love' - Tatto Club, year 1990: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfr7qgLzaSI
'Vision of Love' - BET Blueprint, year 2005: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8cCgrx6eDg
In the performance at the Tattoo Club in 1990, her use of constriction on her high belts creates curbing - the raspy metal sound - I referred to. Here, Mariah is young, her career has only just begun and thus hasn't been taxing on her vocal folds. It's the same kind of idea that you don't feel the adverse effects from smoking until you've been doing it for a while. Her bad habit has yet to become a bad habit. In the performance on BET to promote 'The Emancipation of Mimi', her constriction is far more harsher as she pushes and pushes herself to hit the high notes of the original song, despite the performance already being in a lower key to accommodate that doing so is no longer effortless for her. The result is a very weak and raspy belt. Her nodules also seem to be more noticeable in this performance, as she fails to ascend her belt up to an F5 (the run starting at 2:50) and accidentally switches into her whistle register. This implies that her nodules have hardened and she very well may have acquired new ones, hindering her ability to sing through them like she was once able to.
Age is also a possible, often under-examined contributing factor to Mariah's vocal decline. There's no denying that her voice has changed considerably throughout her entire career: from the rich and resonant (1990-93), to the light and high (1994-96), to the hoarse and husky (1997-2001), to the thin and raspy (2002-2005), to the deep and dry (2006-2009) and now to the thin and nasal (2010-present). A consistent change throughout her voice is deepening, which is a standard change upon the vocal folds of most females, however there are many singers even older than Mariah that have maintained a consistent vocal range, such as Barbara Streisand and Patti Labelle. Although age effects are present, they don't struggle to sing their older songs in their original key due to mother nature darkening their instrument. Plus, there are far too many other questionable issues with her voice that simply cannot be a mere result of ageing, though that's not to say age isn't yet another thing that has combined with the likes of nodules and improper technique to falter the voice so much. The fact of the matter here is that Mariah isn't 25 any more, and youth puts one at an advantage when it comes to acrobatics - whether that be the impeccable control of the vocal folds or the ability to set an Olympic record on an endless running track. Both activities require a strong, healthy muscle, and muscles wane as a person ages. Mariah is only human.
In conclusion, each factor I have mentioned has a lasting effect on the voice alone. Maybe Mariah's nodules have finally betrayed her after years of producing her ethereal notes. Maybe her improper technique use throughout the years has finally caused her voice to give in. Maybe she's just getting on in her years. Maybe the bizarre shift in her voice from 1996 to 1997 is a result of a hidden health condition such as a vocal haemorrhage: just listen to Adele in the run up to her vocal haemorrhage - high and thin, just like Mariah was in 1996. Whatever the reasons, it's clearly a complexed bunch and a debate that will likely stay unresolved in the future, however no one can deny the deterioration of Mariah Carey's voice. I just hope, for her sake and my own enjoyment of her voice and music, that it declines no more and should it be fixable with a bit of surgery that a doctor may have already recommended to her, she takes the chance in a heartbeat.
Lauded for her limitless range, impeccable technique, and gravity-defying vocal runs, Mariah Carey has long proved herself worthy of the world record title "Songbird Supreme." At her peak, Ms. Carey's voice box was an unstoppable, untameable and unwavering force; the Jimmy Hendrix of singing. She has inspired countless vocalists around the world: from wannabe "singers" screaming out 'Hero' on American Idol to teenage girls belting 'Vision of Love' into their hairbrush.
Since Mariah Carey's successful debut in 1990, many have witnessed the highs and lows throughout her illustrious two decade career: turning from the humble girl next door into an emancipated diva; a not-so-glittering film debut and the highly publicized struggles of her personal and professional life. But the most baffling and saddening changes that we, her fans, have noticed are those of her seemingly perfect voice. Switching from a flawless 1995 live rendition of 'Make It Happen' to an unflattering 2012 studio recording of 'Triumphant (Get 'Em)', it's difficult not to ask the question... "What's Happened to Mariah Carey's Voice?"
It's undeniable that the voice we now hear, straining to hit the notes the Mariah of the 90s would be able to hit in her sleep, is sharply different from the voice we heard belt and whistle out those high notes in such hits as 'Hero' and 'Vision of Love'. But how can such a practically flawless voice deteriorate so drastically? Is it her nodules? Is it her overuse of her voice? Have her vocal folds weakened as she's aged? From my point of view, these are combining factors that have contributed to Mariah's steady vocal decline.
Mariah has always been very vocal about her nodules: "they're the reason why I have the high register and the belting register and I can still be husky. A lot of people couldn't sing through the nodules the way I do; I've learned to sing through my vocal cords." When she words it like that, it paints the wrong picture of what nodules are. For Mariah, they have aided her vocal folds since she was a child, granting her the ability to rival the notes on both ends of a piano. However, to most singers nodules do to vocal folds what rust does to metal: destruction. Nodules are solid masses of tissue, usually the result of overusing the voice, that prevent the vocal folds from closing properly, and so a huskier sound - Mariah's natural speaking voice - is the result. Additionally, nodules force the singer to strain so they can hit those crystal clear high belts - the kind Mariah is famed for. In order to prevent nodules from forming, a singer must provide themselves adequate rest and vocal rehabilitation (vocal training/speech therapy), or in the more severe cases, risky surgery (see Julie Andrews). The potential problem this poses for Mariah is a lose-lose situation: she can't utilize her gift without the nodules, but she'll damage her gift with them. Of course, this kind of damage doesn't just happen overnight, it works at a steady pace: if you injure your ankle and don't rest it, every time you walk on it will cause more and more damage. As examples of Mariah's vocal decline, I have used two performances of 'Hero' below, taken from her 'Daydream Tour' in 1996 and 'Butterfly Tour' in 1998, for comparison.
'Hero' - Daydream Tour, year 1996: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLy3t-o2_dc
'Hero' - Butterfly Tour, year 1998: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0N7unqHATI&t=21m38s
These two performances of the same song, just less than two years apart, make for such a harsh difference in her vocal tone, range, and technique. In the 1996 performance, both her speaking and singing voice is bright and high: for the climax starting at 2:48, she is able to effortlessly belt E5, F5 and even G5 notes (oddly enough, far better than she could at the start of her career), in addition to swiftly transitioning between registers; going from low resonating belt to a high whisper in the space of a word. In her 1998 performance, focusing on the climax starting at 24:12, her entire voice has become strained and hoarse: her stamina and ability to belt are severely hindered, and she struggles to hit belted notes above a C5 without sounding coarse and forced (see the final "You know you can SURVIVE!" where she strains for and misses the F5 used for the same lyric in the Daydream Tour performance), in addition to skipping specific notes she can't hit easily any more. When compared together, these performances somewhat counter the argument that her nodules are to blame for her sudden deterioration, as nodules, in theory, should not cause such a drastic change to her voice in such a short period of time, especially if she's been singing through them since childhood. That said, they are no doubt a significant contributor to her vocal decline overall.
Another aspect of Mariah's voice that I believe has aided her deterioration is technique. She may sound incredible when she sings, but that doesn't mean she's doing so in a healthy way. For the most part, Mariah has a very healthy technique: her larynx is always in neutral position, except for when she sings in her lower register. Incorrect positioning of the larynx can easily damage your voice. Think of it this way: if you continuously lift up heavy boxes without positioning your back properly, you're going to wake up feeling achey and sore. A similar thing happens if the larynx isn't positioned correctly when singing, only it's more difficult to tell if there's a problem. Mariah frequently utilizes her lower register, specifically mixing it with belting in songs like 'Without You'.
Mariah has stated she knows her limits when it comes to her belts in the lower register, but the fact that her larynx is usually forced whenever she sings in it has caused it to become worn and distended, explaining how in recent years her low notes sound tired and hoarse. Although her larynx is in a healthy, neutral position for the rest of her range (including her whistle register, which she enters with the assistance of her nodules to sing through the very top of her vocal folds), a lot of constriction can be heard through in her voice, particularly at the start of her career. Being an R&B/Soul singer, Mariah frequently uses a technique known as "curbing" which is used to create metallic sounds on medium volume singing (so basically, more powerful, resonating and soulful belts), and so uses more constriction to create such a sound than she probably should. "Constriction" refers to the muscles beyond the vocal folds closing and tightening up, creating a tense and somewhat raspy sound. By using so much constriction, Mariah is over working her false vocal folds (the muscle area above the actual vocal folds) and not allowing them to vibrate as freely as they should be able to. Her constriction ascends as she moves up her belting range, ultimately making notes beyond D5 sound "scratchy". Additionally, when Mariah started utilizing her self-proclaimed "whisper register" on her 1997 album 'Butterfly', she gave herself additional problems. When you constrict your vocal folds and begin talking normally, it will sound a bit like you're whispering, so the fact that Mariah uses this whisper register so much means she had begun constricting in her head voice too. Furthermore, the only part of her singing where she doesn't constrict is her lower register, which is unfortunately where she suffers from a misplaced larynx. Combining this with the constriction her nodules will already hold over the actual folds themselves creates a very damaging effect. It's an unfortunate habit that Mariah has used throughout her entire singing career, and as her voice as deteriorated more and more she is forced to use such constriction to hit higher notes. This is most likely why she lip-syncs so much, particularly to her older songs, because she can no longer hit such notes without putting severe strain on her vocal folds, and the many muscles that work with them.
In the two performances of 'Vision of Love' below, from 1990 and 2005 respectively, her use of constriction to achieve curbing is still more or less the same, only she has to work five times as hard at it in the 2005 performance. Both performances are fully live, so a clear comparison is fairly identifiable.
'Vision of Love' - Tatto Club, year 1990: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfr7qgLzaSI
'Vision of Love' - BET Blueprint, year 2005: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8cCgrx6eDg
In the performance at the Tattoo Club in 1990, her use of constriction on her high belts creates curbing - the raspy metal sound - I referred to. Here, Mariah is young, her career has only just begun and thus hasn't been taxing on her vocal folds. It's the same kind of idea that you don't feel the adverse effects from smoking until you've been doing it for a while. Her bad habit has yet to become a bad habit. In the performance on BET to promote 'The Emancipation of Mimi', her constriction is far more harsher as she pushes and pushes herself to hit the high notes of the original song, despite the performance already being in a lower key to accommodate that doing so is no longer effortless for her. The result is a very weak and raspy belt. Her nodules also seem to be more noticeable in this performance, as she fails to ascend her belt up to an F5 (the run starting at 2:50) and accidentally switches into her whistle register. This implies that her nodules have hardened and she very well may have acquired new ones, hindering her ability to sing through them like she was once able to.
Age is also a possible, often under-examined contributing factor to Mariah's vocal decline. There's no denying that her voice has changed considerably throughout her entire career: from the rich and resonant (1990-93), to the light and high (1994-96), to the hoarse and husky (1997-2001), to the thin and raspy (2002-2005), to the deep and dry (2006-2009) and now to the thin and nasal (2010-present). A consistent change throughout her voice is deepening, which is a standard change upon the vocal folds of most females, however there are many singers even older than Mariah that have maintained a consistent vocal range, such as Barbara Streisand and Patti Labelle. Although age effects are present, they don't struggle to sing their older songs in their original key due to mother nature darkening their instrument. Plus, there are far too many other questionable issues with her voice that simply cannot be a mere result of ageing, though that's not to say age isn't yet another thing that has combined with the likes of nodules and improper technique to falter the voice so much. The fact of the matter here is that Mariah isn't 25 any more, and youth puts one at an advantage when it comes to acrobatics - whether that be the impeccable control of the vocal folds or the ability to set an Olympic record on an endless running track. Both activities require a strong, healthy muscle, and muscles wane as a person ages. Mariah is only human.
In conclusion, each factor I have mentioned has a lasting effect on the voice alone. Maybe Mariah's nodules have finally betrayed her after years of producing her ethereal notes. Maybe her improper technique use throughout the years has finally caused her voice to give in. Maybe she's just getting on in her years. Maybe the bizarre shift in her voice from 1996 to 1997 is a result of a hidden health condition such as a vocal haemorrhage: just listen to Adele in the run up to her vocal haemorrhage - high and thin, just like Mariah was in 1996. Whatever the reasons, it's clearly a complexed bunch and a debate that will likely stay unresolved in the future, however no one can deny the deterioration of Mariah Carey's voice. I just hope, for her sake and my own enjoyment of her voice and music, that it declines no more and should it be fixable with a bit of surgery that a doctor may have already recommended to her, she takes the chance in a heartbeat.
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Comments
Indeed, it does seem to be a combination of the factors you mentioned. I was unaware of her nodules and having known someone who's struggled for the past couple of years and gone through surgery for the same condition, I'm surprised that Mariah has continued singing without treatment. Then again, if they aid her signature sound then money trumps all I guess.
You mentioned Barbara Streisand, whose technique I would think is far superior to Mariah's, as an artist using their voice in the 'right' way. I might be wrong but I'm sure that Streisand has been much more protective of her voice in that she hasn't toured as extensively as artists such as Mariah. When you throw in singing for hours 4,5,6 evenings a week for months on end (and sometimes longer), the lack of a solid routine that goes with a touring schedule, and the factors you outlined, you get a recipe for disaster.
Although I'm not so much of a Mariah fan, I do appreciate her immense talent and it is a shame to see her voice deteriorate so much. I was very young at the time, still her Grammy performance of Vision of Love always sticks out in my mind as a great debut Grammy performance.
@Waldstein - Barbra Streisand has pretty on-point technique, and you're definitely right about her being more cautious with her voice and not touring as much as Mariah (and Barbra's ticket prices are about 5 times the price of Mariah's). However, Mariah did actually provide herself adequate rest in between tour dates during her prime - I think it was a minimum of 48 hours each show, which should actually be enough to rest the voice assuming she barely talks through the breaks. In her 2006 tour, 'Adventures of Mimi', she didn't really give herself the same amount of time but then again she was also lipping half of her songs. In addition to Barbra Streisand, if you want to hear someone more current using a similar technique then I recommend listening to Lea Michele, who plays Rachel in Glee, or even Idina Menzel. I'm not that keen on either voice because they're far more theatrical than Barbra, but they have quite a similar technique (at least I think they do, from what I've heard myself and from others) and their voices will likely follow in the footsteps of Barbra's, with age being the only detrimental effect.
So, is this a general interest of yours? I presumed that you study music and had summarized an academic paper you had written!
I would say that the adventures of mimi was the final nail in the coffin for Mariah's voice. She went through a bad vocal patch between 1998-2001 but recovered a good deal of her range duing the charmbracelet era/tour. It wasn't as good as it was in her prime but it was still solid, healthy and very impressive. I think during the mimi era she performed too much and the tour was her most extensive ever by far. Also as you said she didn't have the same amount of breaks in between shows as she'd had in previous tours. I think her voice has never and will never recover from that.
Many singers need vocal rest after touring during the ninties mariah's tours were very short daydream around 15 dates.
Butterfly just a few more her first long tour was charmbraclet 2003 where she toured for months and months.
If she had done maybe shorter tours maybe she would still have her voice also before 1997 she never drank.
In an interview in 1996 she said champagne dried out the voice due to the split with tommy as he was so controlling.
She rebeled drinking and partying the result was her voice was not the same very sad I loved her ninties voice.
Celine & cher still sound great sad what happened.
Once that happens, it's all over . .
Josh
As for Hero, both tours were obviously dubbed, however she actually lipped a lot of her Butterfly Tour. But again, without a live reference it's difficult to tell.
Christina Aguilera also has trouble reaching high notes now - that's an even quicker deterioration.
Perfect technique.
She can effortlessly decend to an Eb2 which would be unachievable with incorrect technique because unlike high belting you cannot force your voice down low in the same way
No, she really does push her larynx down. Just listen to her live performance of You & I (Stevie Wonder cover). As lovely as she sounds in the lower register, it's not the healthiest of technique she's using. You can see her pushing down her larynx when she low notes anyway, it's very easy to tell when someone's lowering their larynx...just look at her neck movements.
But regardless of that singing in the lower range even with an larynx position that wasn't neutral would not affect the overall well being of a voice in the long run.
It's only higher belting that would deteriorate a voice in the long run with improper technique because the higher you belt the faster the vocal chords vibrate and the more they stretch. And the friction causes tears, haemorrhages and nodules to form.
Even opera singers drop the larynx occasionally for low notes.
However most of the time Mariah sings with perfect position in her lower register. As I said as would not be able to do quick descending scale runs and she woul be able to sing low second octave if she didnt.
Notice in the Stevie wonder cover. When her larynx did drop it caused the note to falter and her voice to waver. If that was the case all the time she wouldn't have the most extensive lower range of any popular female vocalist.
Her belting technique was never improper in her prime. It was always perfect.
She could literally click in and out of placements if she felt she was resonating too much In the mask or head or if she was getting too throaty.
Her decline was due to ageing, vocal nodules, stress and lifestyle changes.
When she was with tommy Matola he was controlled ridiculously for her voice to be perfect when she left him she didn't stick to the same vocal practices and regimes she had before.
Also the day dream tour took its toll because of the demanding vocal requirements.
I am enlightened with all your points but have always heard a rumour it was the Daydream tour that ruined her voice the most as Fantasy was such a massive hit. The rumour goes that Tommy Motola kept extending the tour (not sure if true) and then by the time she recorded Butterfly the damage was done. But that is pure speculation obviously.
My my, forgot I wrote this! Glad you enjoyed it. I don't think it was solely the Daydream Tour that ruined her voice. You can tell something is going on with her voice then, but that was present two years before while she was recording the actual album (her larynx sounds really high all the time, she was effortlessly reaching belts she used to struggle with etc.). I still believe her vocal deterioration is down to many factors.
I agree. If you watch this video her whisper voice seems almost gone when performing #Beautiful yet on the album it apparently works fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edoUZ-CJ__Q
(skip to half way through for the specific bit I mean not the crap about lip syncing)