Mariah Carey has loved one of the profitable reigns of any pop star since her chart-topping 1990 eponymous debut album. She made historical past as the primary artist to have their first 5 singles prime the Billboard Sizzling 100 and secured two Diamond-certified albums with 1993’s Music Field and 1995’s Daydream.
Firstly of the twenty first century, although, it was unclear whether or not that reign would proceed. 2001’s Glitter was critically reviled and the following album, Charmbracelet, didn’t do significantly better.
Carey took a short hiatus to regroup as each an artist and particular person, solely to return three years later with a grand comeback. The Emancipation of Mimi, launched in 2005, was the songbird’s tenth and most private album. The singles showcased all completely different sides of her persona: There was the club-ready “It’s Like That,” the feisty “Shake It Off,” the nostalgic “Don’t Forget About Us,” and a reunion with Snoop Dogg on “Say Somethin.” However it was “We Belong Together” that served as the top of her renaissance.
Hearken to Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together” on Apple Music and Spotify.
Launched because the second single from The Emancipation of Mimi on March 29, “We Belong Together” had all the weather to lure the naysayers again beneath her spell whereas giving her followers, the Lambs, what they’d come to like from her. It’s a superbly structured ballad: constructed round a fragile piano melody, “We Belong Together” finds Mariah eager for her lover to return whereas using each little bit of her iconic five-octave vocal vary. The accompanying Brett Ratner-directed music video exhibits Mariah on the brink of wed an older man, a rumored allusion to actual life. However in the long run, Carey runs away from the marriage to reunite with an ex-lover.
It’s clear that Carey was in her consolation zone whereas recording. She labored with longtime collaborator Jermaine Dupri and Johntá Austin (whose songwriting hits embrace Mary J. Blige’s “Be Without You” and Aaliyah’s “Miss You”). Austin was an important companion. For some time, “the second verse was different. Jermaine wasn’t blown away,” Austin instructed Vogue in 2015. “He came to me and he said, ‘I need you to come up with one of those verses that I know you could do.’ I threw the Bobby Womack line out there, and it was received pretty well.”
“We Belong Together” was a smash. It was Mariah’s sixteenth No.1 single, reached the summit of the Billboard Sizzling 100 for 14 non-consecutive weeks, and finally was named Billboard’s “song of the decade.” “I don’t know that we’ve ever actually been able to top it,” Carey defined in 2018. “I get goosebumps thinking about it because it really was such a special time in my life when we did that record.”
Regardless of the circumstances that led as much as it, Carey proved she was an unstoppable drive with “We Belong Together.” From the annual, inevitable chart climb of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” to 2020’s acclaimed memoir The That means of Mariah Carey Carey’s reign continues to at the present time — and it’s all resulting from her emancipating herself from the music business’s expectations.
Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together” appeared on The Greatest Of NOW That’s What I Name Music! tenth Anniversary alongside different hits like Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’.” On the lookout for extra tales behind music’s greatest hits? Take a look at the Now! That’s What I Name Music web page.
