Many cast Carey as a Machiavellian bimbo whose career has benefited greatly from her relationship with Tommy Mottola.
Mottola is (a) the man who signed her to Columbia Records in 1989; (b) the current president of Sony Music Entertainment,
Columbia's parent corporation; and (c) Carey's husband since 1993. According to the bimbo theory, Carey is coddled and
her every creative move dictated by Mottola and his cronies. "They call me the Queen of Sony, or whatever," she says,
wincing at the term.
Carey could have dealt with these charges by screaming sexism. Or she could have adopted the standard "I don't care about
the critics" pose assumed by other maligned megastars who solicit press and then turn up their noses when it gets nasty.
Instead, Carey has chosen the precociously savvy route of speaking to reporters rarely and focusing mainly on her
work-which, bimbo theorists might note, includes cowriting and coproducing.
Granted, Carey-like Michael Bolton before her-has received flak for her writing work.
Four years ago, the Los Angeles-based songwriters Sharon Taber and Randy Gonzalez
filed a suit alleging that in the writing of "Can't Let Go," a track on Carey's 1991 album
Emotions, Carey and Walter Afanasieff, her longtime songwriting partner, lifted nine
out of 11 notes from the chorus of "Right Before My Eyes," a song that Taber and
Gonzalez claim was copyrighted in 1990. The suit charges that Carey got access to a
tape of "Right Before My Eyes" through a backup singer who also knew Taber. Carey
and Afanasieff deny the allegation, but at press time a trial was scheduled to begin in
April. A spokesperson for Carey had no comment on the suit.
There are no such headaches surrounding the sprightly Daydream, though, and it's
earned Carey, if not raves, then certainly the best reviews she's got to date. One reason
is the scarcity of vocal gymnastics on the album. The dog-whistle trills of Carey's earlier
hits are less prominent; instead, the singer reveals more of the lower, sultrier part of her
range-where her emotive powers are richest. Check out her Barry White imitation on
the first few bars of "Melt Away," which she cowrote with Babyface. "A lot of people who wrote about the album thought that
was Babyface singing at the beginning," she laughs. "I'm, like, hel-lo! He only sings in the background."
Carey also gets down more with the songs and arrangements. In addition to collaborating with Babyface and Boyz II Men, she
enlisted some of the hottest writers, producers, remixers, and hip hop savants around to lend some realness to Daydream.
Jermaine Dupri, David Morales, and Dave Hall contributed to this album, and Sean "Puffy" Combs produced a sinuous remix
of "Fantasy" featuring Wu-Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard-not exactly the first guy you'd expect to team up with the girl who
crooned syrupy ballads like "Vision of Love" (1990) and "Hero" (1993). For the album's ebullient third single, "Always Be My
Baby," Carey did one remix with Dupri protégées Xscape and Da Brat, and another with junior reggae star Vicious.
"I started moving in this direction with `Dreamlover,' " Carey says, referring to the breezy single from 1993's Music Box that
became a club hit through remixes. Unwinding after the photo session, she credits her recent progress to following her instincts.
"I listen to this kind of music all the time. It wasn't like I said, `Tell me, who does good remixes?' or `Who's the hot rapper of
the moment?' I knew what I wanted to do and who I wanted to do it with."
In that sense, Daydream is more a document of the pop soul princess growing up than of her growing hip. Carey was a
teenager when she made the album that catapulted her to stardom six years ago. And she still shows traces of the naive,
perhaps easily intimidated young girl we heard on those first few hits, trying to hide her fear behind airy glissandos and
glass-shattering squeals. "I sometimes defer to people who've had more experience," she says with a rueful smile. "That was
my motto for a long time. But now I'm able to say, `I don't agree with you.' Now if I don't do what I want, I'm the only one to
blame."
Before we head out for dinner, Carey shows me through a few rooms in the house, which she and Mottola bought three
years ago, moved into last summer, and are still in the process of furnishing. There's a home recording studio overlooking
an indoor pool with a sky painted on the ceiling, a screening room with a long chrome bar and jukebox, and a cozy (if
cavernous) den with a fireplace. The mantel is lined with pictures of the couple. My tour covers a mere fragment of the place,
but as Carey says, "Some things have to be kept private."
We climb into her shiny black Chevy Blazer and drive to Hoppfields, an elegant bistro that the Mottolas frequent. Once there,
we're shown to a private upstairs room where a table has been set with chairs side by side. "They probably thought I was
coming here with Tommy," Carey smiles. After we've seated ourselves facing each other, she orders pasta, crab cakes, and a
carafe of red wine, joking that she plans to get sloshed and tell me the entire story of her life. I'm not counting on it. Carey is
notoriously guarded, particularly on subjects like her husband and family. And she seems genuinely apprehensive about being
interviewed; when I place my tape recorder on the table, she draws back like a kid about to get a flu shot.
But she is comfortable talking about music. She met her hero, Stevie Wonder, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction
ceremony. "He is the genius of the century," she says. She also gives props to the singers she listened to as a little girl-Knight,
Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Minnie Riperton-and to Olivia Newton-John, whom Carey, like the rest of us who grew up in
the '70s, remembers fondly. Carey also followed early hip hop-she speaks with enthusiasm about "Sugarhill Gang, Eric B. &
Rakim, and all the records that followed."
Granted, it's a long road from "Rapper's Delight" to the Wu-Tang Clan. Puffy Combs, on the phone from Atlanta, admits that
he was a bit surprised when Carey sought him out to remix the "Fantasy" single, especially since she was the one who
specifically requested Ol' Dirty Bastard. "That bugged me out," he says. But Combs found that the singer had a real passion for
hip hop-even for the edgier stuff that a cynic might accuse her of dabbling in only to enhance her street credibility.
"She talked about Wu-Tang and Notorious B.I.G. and Mobb Deep-everybody who's hot," says Combs. "It was like talking to
one of my friends. And she knows the importance of mixes, so [in the studio with her] you feel like you're with an artist who
appreciates your work-an artist who wants to come up with something with you."
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