Mariah Carey (;: 0:01 born March 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. An influential figure in music, she is known for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, and signature use of the whistle register. Referred to as the "Songbird Supreme" by Guinness World Records, she was ranked as the fifth greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023.
Carey rose to fame in 1990 with her self-titled debut album and became the only artist to have their first five singles reach number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100. She established herself as a balladeer with the best-selling albums Music Box (1993) and Daydream (1995), before adapting a new urban image with hip hop-inflected sounds, following the release of Butterfly (1997). With eleven consecutive years of US number-one singles, Billboard ranked Carey as the most successful artist of the decade. Following a career decline and the failure of her 2001 film Glitter, she returned to the top of the charts with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century, and E=MC² (2008). Carey has amassed an extensive catalog of high-charting singles including "One Sweet Day" and "We Belong Together" – Billboard's most successful songs of the 1990s and 2000s respectively – along with "Vision of Love", "Emotions", "I'll Be There", "Dreamlover", "Hero", "Without You", "Fantasy", "Always Be My Baby", "Honey", "Heartbreaker", "I Know What You Want", "Touch My Body" and "Obsessed".
Carey's public and personal life, including her diva persona, high-profile relationships and public breakdown in 2001, has received widespread media coverage. Since the 2010s, she has also been dubbed the "Queen of Christmas" due to the enduring popularity of her holiday music, particularly Merry Christmas (1994) and its track "All I Want for Christmas Is You" – the best-selling holiday album and single by a female artist of all time. The latter has topped the Hot 100 every holiday season since 2019 and has broken numerous records. Outside of music, Carey has had roles in the films Precious (2009), The Butler (2013), A Christmas Melody (2015), The Lego Batman Movie (2017), and The Star (2017), served as an American Idol judge, starred in the docu-series Mariah's World, and published the memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey (2020).
She is one of the best-selling music artists, with over 220 million records sold worldwide, and is an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, and The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. In 2019, Billboard named her the top-charting female solo artist, based on both album and song chart success. She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist (19), a female songwriter (18), and a female producer (15), spending a record 93 weeks atop the chart. Carey is the highest-certified female artist in the United States and 10th overall, with 75 million certified album units. Among her accolades are 6 Grammy Awards (including the Grammy Global Impact Award), 10 American Music Awards, 20 Billboard Music Awards and 12 Guinness World Records.
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