No sweat, as I said I'm gay and wasn't in the least offended lol Mariah does have big appeal to the gay audience as a lot of female vocalists generally do.

She's about as far away from my preferred music as you can get.

My most played MC song on my iPod is there's got to be a way

I've never known anybody to over sing like her. There was a performance of I Wanna Know What Love Is, where it must have taken 15-20 seconds to say that one line.

It was infuriating... "I wanna, ooo I wanna, I just wanna know, I wanna know, wanna know what love, wanna know why love is"

Just say the ****ing line and save us 20 seconds of that sh*te.

Hahahaha Cissy Fairfax that's hilarious, it's funny cos it's true.

As much as I love her there are some songs that you just have to leave well alone because you can't sing them with her lololol

I love the climax of I want to know what love is. So many notes and runs in there and a whistle to boot! I just lip sync to most of Mariah's songs and if I'm home alone I throw in some hand movements as well lol

I think she is mainly remembered for throwing tantrums if she didn't have the requisite number of dwarves and kittens delivered to her dressing room.

im glad about that, i wasnt trying to offend/insult.


pmsl... yep, im with you on that.... i guess you either like vocal gymnastics, or hate them.

Haha and throw in a head movement and lip quiver in too for good measure

From about 1994-1999. Not so much before and really not after. Can't Live If Living Is Without You (or whatever it's called! ) was where it started; Heartbreaker was pretty much the end.

Mariah's first two albums were mildly popular in the UK with "Vision of Love" being the most known hit of that era. However her popularity took hold with her released cover of "I'll be there" in 1992. By 1993 with the release of Music Box, she had 3 consecutive huge hits in the UK with "Dreamlover", "Hero" and "Without You". I remember that year, I was 16 and WY was e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

Contrary to popular belief, "All I want For Christmas" was not a really huge hit the first time out in 1994. I remember other songs such as East 17's Stay being a lot more popular that year. It was only after a few years that the song became a Christmas gem.

Mariah's two subsequent albums sold well. I remember the realease of Daydream in 1995 and that being a big event with posters and adverts everywhere to promote it and the album going to No.1. But the apex of her career in the UK was 1993 with the trio of songs listed above

Yes defo, I'll Be There was the first I'd ever heard of Mariah Carey, and I agree, although All I Want For Christmas was loved, it wasn't massive at first. Took a while to cement it up there with other Christmas songs.

I don't think she's popular at the moment in the UK.

However, her best albums being Musicbox, Daydream, Butterfly and The Emancipation of Mimi were very popular.

Musicbox being my personal favourite.

I do remember her being big in the UK pretty much from the start of her career. A few people have commented that Mariah was big from 1993, but I clearly remember 'Vision of Love' being released & played a great deal on MTV Europe in 1990 (had not long had Satellite TV installed & have fond memories of the music videos from 1989/1990 - having a music channel was a great novelty back then!)...also remember her doing MTV Unplugged in 1992 & her cover of 'I'll be there' from this session being a big hit in the UK.

Personally, I have always preferred Mariah's up-tempo tracks to her ballads.

I knew of her in 1991. My mum bought the emotions album and it was played over and over again at home. That's how I became a fan. I think she was known before I'll be there was released in the UK, but her peak was 1993-1996.

To me the Daydream album was when she was at her best - Fantasy, Open Arms, One Sweet Day and Always Be My Baby were all classic hits.

Fantasy is such a tune

She is one of those people I just don't get. She is just to us herself

Of course. She's always been popular, especially in the mid 90s and 05.

In the 1990's she had 16 Top 10 hits (only Madonna had more) and 12 of them were consecutive. She spent a total of 219 weeks in the singles chart (only Madonna & Oasis had more weeks).

At her peak in 1994 she achieved:
First female to have a single debut at #1
Music box debuted at #1 with 200,500
First female to have a #1 single and album debut together
3rd best selling album with Music Box
2nd best selling singles artist
3rd best selling albums artist
4 top 10 singles (joint first with East 17 & Take That)
45 weeks spent in singles chart more that any act

Some other stats:

24 top 10 singles
12 top 10 albums
16 silver albums
13 gold albums
7 platinum albums
5 multi-platinum albums
8th best selling female singles act of all time
2nd best selling female albums artist for 2005
Sold out Wembley arena 3 times

When she did her first record signing at London's Tower Records in 1995, she broke records when 6,000 came out to see her. It was pandemonium with some people being crushed and the police struggling to keep the crowd back. I remember it making the evening news.

And 10 years late she brought Oxford Street to a standstill when she was signing her TEOM album at HMV. More than 8,000 people were there to see her.

3 years later she brought London to a standstill again when she held a signing at Selfridges. Likewise her appearance a year later at Westfields to switch on the Christmas lights drew big numbers.

Far from it. You wont find many celebrities of her magnitude who are as giving and close to her fans as she is. Also not to forget the work she does for underprivileged kids.

I'm not sure if anyone has said this or not yet, but she has always had this reputation of being a diva and hard to like, however in interviews she comes across really well I think, she seems very nice! She does seem to be quite thankful to her fans a lot too.

Nice to see someone with actual stats instead of knocking Mariah because she doesn't suit their tastes.

The media gave her the reputation of being a demanding diva and the public fell for it.They print many things about her which just simply aren't true.

She actually is very down to Earth and she can take the piss out of herself.

You never hear of her treating people badly or not appreciating her fans. She is so grateful to the fans.

She's very down to earth. The demanding diva things just simply aren't true. She did an interview with Allan Carr in 2009 and she is one of the only American artists I can think of who get British humour...

I know all the diva nonsense is annoying and totally uncalled for. She is a very nice and she was lovely to me when I met her at westfields a few years back.

I think the Diva thing gets played up in the media so much is , and don't shoot me, there's not much else to say about her (unrelated to music)
She's never really courted controversy, had a string of high profile love affairs or problems with addiction, she's not a style icon, no new religion. Until she married Nick there was rarely anything about her personal life "newsworthy" and even now it's just a few lovey dovey pictures, nothing weird or scandalous.
So a story about hiring a limo for a dress or being late for an interview is all that gets reported about her.
She has money and she likes to spend it, for 20+ years in the industry I don't think that's the worst way to be she may as well enjoy her success and if she wants to pay someone to hold her drinking straw well that's her business haha. She seems to donate a lot to charity.