What's the appeal?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Mariah Carey
soccertrainy101 — 9 years ago(December 02, 2016 11:16 PM)
Just an honest question, not looking to be attacked by groupies lol.
Just have never understood the appeal of Mariah yeah she has a great range but the amount of runs she does in her music takes away from her talent and then when you see her personality well damn. Couldn't get a lot worse, could it? On Ellen, she said she was being her authentic self which was a self-absorbed diva so why? There are so many genuine, humble artists out there who are wildly talented but she is treated like a goddess and I seriously just can't fathom it. I would be eternally grateful if you could enlighten me without telling me to shut up and calling me a hater hahah jk I won't censor you. -
PrometheusTree64 — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 09:33 AM)
She supposedly has an 80 octave range, but she's never worked for me as a singer.
She's not an Aretha or a Streisand or an Adele or that Titanic song woman from Canada although there was a period in music a few years ago, given where the industry was for a while, when her meager vocal gifts were breaking every imaginable record.
Her appeal today is the usual media/social-media narcissist thing: give all the attention to the person in the best gown and cops the most attitude.
And you can't blame her. That just seems to be the game today. -
Kompressor_Fan — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 10:46 AM)
I think her appeal to most of the public evaporated many years ago. I think that DC Productions "threw her a bone" with this gig so she could try and revive her career. She blew it..then, she tried to blame others, and that seems to have blown up in her face, as well.
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Voodoo_Child2016 — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 08:05 PM)
"There are so many genuine, humble artists out there who are wildly talented but she is treated like a goddess and I seriously just can't fathom it."
My thoughts exactly about Mariah, Aretha, Streisand, and these other obnoxious self-absorbed "divas2000". So you can sing. Doesn't mean everyone should kiss your asses. -
pandahey — 9 years ago(January 29, 2017 02:39 PM)
Mariah's fans (myself included) love her because I guess she overall seems playful and often behaves unexpectedly. You see, though in recent years this may not still hold water, she always saw this diva act as something to experiment and play with. She definitely deserves all the praise she's got (I'll return to that in a minute), and instead of just preaching around about hard work and basking in her wealth, she decides to explore the limits while playing this diva-ish persona (once again, in the recent years she may have BECOME that persona), often provoking negative reactions (not always unfounded). As someone has pointed out on this thread already, this may show some underlying psychological issues concerning her insecurity. But we know she had a hard childhood and adolescence, and at first all this 'dahling' and diva stuff was I'd say ironic and tongue-in-cheek.
As to her accolades, she does possess an incredible voice. Admittedly she is a pop singer, and not everyone enjoys pop. But we're talking about that now. It's not just that she can hit those high-pitched notes, she can play with them, change the texture of her voice, sustain notes, harmonize, do runs and phrase showing both her skill and creativity. Few people can do that, and even if they can access their whistle register, it rarely is as consistent and beautiful. But whistle register is not where it ends. She has a surprisingly strong lower register (she always claimed she was an alto), and very resonant belts (high notes sung in full voice; see: the end of 'Anytime You Need A Friend', 'Mine Again', but basically every other song). She also possesses g2000reat agility in her voice, though not everybody likes those dizzy flourishes. Obviously she lost a lot of her ability over the years, due to over-performing and recording, aging, not taking proper care of her voice and nodules, but in her prime she was an unstoppable vocalist. Her songs are very taxing. 'Emotions' is likely one of the hardest pop songs ever. 'There's Got to Be a Way', 'Lead the Way', 'My All', the list goes on, all these songs obliterate other pop artists vocally. And it obviously isn't just that these songs are unnecessarily difficult, the woman has 18 #1, so people liked those songs, thought they were fun/relatable, etc.
One important thing about her is that she co-writes all her songs - lyrics and the melody. The only songs she didn't write are straight-up covers ('I Wanna Know What Love Is', 'Without You') and the duet with Whitney. So she isn't just some cookie-cutter girl with a good voice, she is involved with her music. You may not like that type of music, but, once again, she has 18 #1, so surely many people do (or did). She must be doing something right (when writing and producing). She is also very creative with her studio vocals. Not on 'Queen' level perhaps, and I'm sure that there are many more non-mainstream artists who go crazy with the harmonies and other creative stuff, but for a pop singer, she puts so much stuff in there, that there's always something new to discover, if you are interested in background harmonies and such. One example of her creativity would be 'Butterfly' - not only are the lyrics very poignant and beautiful (though a bit soppy), she flutters with her voice throughout the whole song (mini vocal runs and melismata), alluding to butterflies. The song is generally gently sung (like butterflies), until the climax, where she unleashes her powerful, but fragile and yearning vocals with intentional vocal brakes (fragile like butterflies).
I guess that most of us also love her weird relationship with language - there's an article on BuzzFeed, I believe, about it. Though a pop act, she casually uses words and phrases such as 'acquiescent', 'vividly emblazoned', 'despondency', 'relinquish', 'incessantly', 'abandonedly', 'incandescent' in her songs - because why not!
In the end, her story is also an inspiring one. She experienced much ostracism and bullying as a biracial child of divorced parents. Her sister was a prostitute. She lived as a teen in a small damp flat sleeping on the floor, not having anything to eat and what not. But she made it, with her talent and perseverance. That's why she chose to be indulgent later in her career. She knows how it is when you're on the bottom. I suggest also watching the video on YouTube titled 'Mariah Carey's best speech so far.'