Mariah Carey lives in a big estate on top of a hill. To get there, you have to drive through the narrow, winding back roads
of Bedford-a posh, secluded district of New York's suburban Westchester County. Then you're confronted by two
giant electronic gates.
It's just before 6:00 on a foggy December evening when the driver escorting me to the house is allowed past the second one.
We travel on for another quarter mile or so, past a display of immaculate spruce trees, and pull up to the back entrance. "Look
at the castle," the driver says. "Who knows? Maybe some day you and I can have the same."
I'm not holding my breath. But there's something about Carey's meteoric rise to stardom that does make people believe in
impossible dreams. "Fairy tale" and "Cinderella story" are clichés that you constantly hear in association with the 26-year-old
singer. And that's fair enough: Like all the great Walt Disney heroines, Carey comes from humble stock and got to where she is
through a combination of good luck, good genes, and sheer moxie. As she tells me later, "I think of Cinderella as a poor girl
who worked her ass off and became a princess. In that sense, I don't mind the
comparison."
And when I arrive at her house, Carey is on her hands and knees, like Cinderella
before the transformation. It's not a stab at false humility-she's in the midst of a photo
shoot. Even in painted-on leather pants and a little black top, with makeup slathered
over her soft features and creamy skin, Carey projects a wholesome, head-cheerleader
kind of beauty. She's had what should have been an exhausting week: Two days ago,
she had to fly back from a whirlwind press tour of Europe just in time to induct Gladys
Knight & the Pips into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But five hours into the photo
session, Carey's still grinning gamely. She doesn't just suffer work gladly-she thrives on
it.
In fact, since making her recording debut in 1990 with Mariah Carey, she has released
a dizzying five albums (and a live EP) in six years. Along the way, she's sold more than
70 million copies worldwide, and that's not even counting her astronomical singles sales.
In music industry math, that means she's made more money selling records, tapes, and
CDs than any other female artist in the '90s. Mariah Carey has sold more than
Madonna, more than Whitney, more than Janet.
"Fantasy" (a revision of Tom Tom Club's 1981 "Genius of Love"), the first single from Carey's latest blockbuster, Daydream,
made Billboard history last October by entering the pop and R&B singles charts at No. 1. She was the second artist to pull
this off-after Michael Jackson-and the first female. Another song from that album, "One Sweet Day," a wistful duet with Boyz
II Men, followed suit, giving Carey a grand total of 10 hits that have topped the pop charts over the course of her six-year
career. In January she won two American Music Awards and was nominated for six Grammys.
And yet, for all these accomplishments, Carey still has a seriously difficult time in the respect department. Critics acknowledge
her technical prowess and her five-octave range, but they also dismiss her singing as trite and ostentatious, and her music as
crossover fluff. "Her songs are often sugary and artificial-NutraSweet soul," sniffed Time last year. It's true that many of
Carey's songs haven't packed a lot of visceral punch. And the impressiveness of her voice-as well as her tendency to
oversing-make the blandness of her material all the more flagrant. It's one thing to hear Paula Abdul chirp out an innocuous
pop ditty; Carey's pipes demand more meat.
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