"Careerwise or Couchwise, Things are Up for Pop's Mariah Carey"

        Mariah Carey is gazing out the window of her 21st-floor Manhattan 
apartment -- and complaining about the view, of all things. The height, 
she says sometimes makes me dizzy. That may well be, but these days 
there's probably a better explanation for her spinning head. Three years 
ago Carey was sleeping on the floor of a shared apartment. Now, thanks to 
a debut album released last June, she's pop's top-ranking rookie diva, 
with three hits, including "Vision of Love" and the current "Someday," to 
her credit. To complete her upstart resume, she has five freshly minted 
Grammy nominations.
        Sudden success can be unsettling, but as Carey, 21, points out, 
it sure beats the alternative. "I would be frightened if this WASN'T 
happening," she says. "Some people don't find out what they want to be 
until they're 35. I knew when I was 4." By then Carey was already taking 
vocal lessons from mother Patricia, a onetime singer with the New York 
City Opera. Mom, of Irish ancestry, and Carey's dad, an engineer whose 
bloodlines are African-American and Venezuelan, had divorced a year 
earlier, and for the next 15 years Carey moved often as her mother sought 
work as a vocal coach. At 18, armed with a five-octave vocal range of her 
own, Carey set out to pursue a music career.
        For 10 months she waitressed and haunted New York City recording 
studios before winning an audition as a backup vocalist for R&B's Brenda 
K. Starr. "Most singers," says Carey, "would have said, 'Stay in the 
background and don't sing too loud.'" Instead Starr helped Carey land a 
record contract.
        Since MARIAH CAREY hit, Carey has kept the celebration modest, 
buying a Mustang convertible and moving into a one-bedroom East Side 
apartment complete with Marilyn Monroe posters, two cats -- and that 
view. Beginning work on a sophomore album, she insists that the 
professional heights, at least, are quite comfortable. "It feels 
amazing," she says. "And I don't let it go to my head at all."


[Caption] - "I'm introverted in my own way but not like really, really 
introverted," says Carey, ever the woman of balance.