` Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is a R&B; and pop singer, songwriter, record producer and occasional actress of the 1990s and 2000s. Making her debut in 1990, she became the most successful and best-selling artist of the coming decade according to Billboard magazine and the World Music Awards. In 2000, the World Music Awards show named her the best-selling female recording artist of all time.  Carey is noted for her distinctive singing style that makes frequent use of melismas and other ornamentation, and she possesses a five-octave vocal range. She released a throng of number-one hits while signed to Columbia Records, formerly run by then-husband Tommy Mottola, and several of them broke chart records. By the turn of the millennium, however, Carey's popularity with critics and the public had entered decline, and she was dropped from her new record label following a highly-publicised physical breakdown and an unsuccessful foray into film. In 2005, Carey returned to the forefront of popular music with the release of the multi-platinum The Emancipation of Mimi.  ==Biography and music career== ===Early life and discovery=== Carey was born in Huntington, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia Hickey, a Catholic opera singer and voice coach of Irish-American descent, and Alfred Roy Carey (né Núñez), an aeronautical engineer of Afro-Venezuelan descent. She was named after the song ``And They Call the Wind Maria``, from the musical Paint Your Wagon. Carey's siblings include her older sister Alison, and her older brother Morgan. As a multiracial family, the Carey household was met with racial slurs, hostility, and sometimes violence, causing the family to move frequently around the New York area. The strain on the family led to the divorce of Carey's parents when she was three years old. Carey had little contact with her father, and her mother worked several jobs to support the family.  Spending much of her time at home alone, Carey turned to music as an outlet. She began singing at the age of four, and first performed in public at the age of six. She began writing songs while in grade school, and her mother and the members of her opera company were impressed with her talents when Carey hit a cue note that her mother had missed. Carey attended and graduated from Oldfield Middle School and Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, although she was frequently absent due to efforts to break into the music business. After moving to New York City, she eventually landed a role as a backup singer for Brenda K. Starr.  In 1988, Carey met Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola at a party, where Starr gave him a demo tape. Mottola played the tape while leaving the party and was very impressed by what he heard. He returned to the party to find Carey, but she had already left. Nevertheless, Mottola tracked her down and signed her to a recording contract. This Cinderella-like story became part of the standard publicity surrounding Carey's entrance into the industry.  ===1990–1992: Early commercial success=== Carey's professional music career began with the release of her eponymous debut album, Mariah Carey, in 1990. Carey co-wrote all of the compositions on her debut album with songwriter-producers such as Ric Wake and Rhett Lawrence, and would continue to co-write nearly all of her material for the rest of her career. The album debuted low on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, but ascended to number one a year after its release, where it remained for eleven weeks. It produced four number-one singles, making Carey a star in the United States. Elsewhere, however, the album's success was limited. In 1991, Carey won her first and only Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her debut single ``Vision of Love``.   in 1992.]]  Emotions, Carey's second album, was released in the fall of 1991 to critical and commercial success. Its first single, the title track ``Emotions``, gave Carey the distinction of being the only recording act in history to have their first five singles reach number-one on the U.S. Hot 100 chart. The album's follow-up singles were less successful, only reaching the top five. Carey had been lobbying for the ability to produce her own songs, and beginning with Emotions, would co-produce most of her material. She would also begin writing and producing for other artists, such as Penny Ford and Daryl Hall, within the coming year.  Although she had done a few concert dates to support her first album, Carey did not embark on any major public tours. Her first widely-seen concert performance was on the television show MTV Unplugged in May 1992, and her performance proved that her vocal abilities were not, as some had previously speculated, simulated using studio techniques. In addition to acoustic versions of some of her earlier songs, Carey and back-up singer Trey Lorenz premiered a cover of The Jackson 5's ``I'll Be There`` on the special. Released as a single, it became Carey's sixth number-one hit in the U.S. and led to a record deal for Lorenz, whose debut album Carey produced. Her Unplugged performance was later released by Columbia on the EP MTV Unplugged.  ===1993–1996: Worldwide success=== Carey, then 23, and Tommy Mottola, 43, had become romantically involved, and in June 1993 they were married in an Episcopalian ceremony in Manhattan. Her third studio album, Music Box, was released later that year, and became her most successful album worldwide. Lead single ``Dreamlover`` was her longest stayer yet at the number-one spot in the U.S. (eight weeks), ``Hero`` became her first Christmas number-one single in the U.S., and ``Without You`` (a cover of the Badfinger song) went to number-one in the UK. However, ``Anytime You Need a Friend`` became Carey's first single to peak outside of the U.S. top ten, and her attempt at a mellower work than her previous efforts raised eyebrows with some critics: Ron Wynn said Carey ``blended into the background and let the tracks guide her, instead of pushing and exploding through them``, and Stephen Holden criticised ``Carey's lyrics, which are made up entirely of pop and soul clichés``.   recording ``One Sweet Day`` (1995), one of Carey's most successful singles.]]  Following a hit duet with Luther Vandross of Diana Ross' ``Endless Love``, Carey released the holiday album Merry Christmas in late 1994. In addition to covers of traditional Christmas songs, it contained a very successful original holiday song, ``All I Want for Christmas Is You``. The single became her first number-one hit in Japan and was described as ``a well-crafted Phil Spector tribute`` by Roch Parisien, who dismissed Merry Christmas as an ``otherwise vanilla set``. The album was popular with the public, becoming one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time.  In 1995, Carey released Daydream, which combined the pop sensibilities of Music Box with modern R&B;/hip-hop influences. It became her largest-selling LP in the U.S., and its singles achieved similar success: lead single ``Fantasy`` became only the second single to debut at number-one in the U.S. and spent twelve weeks at number one in Canada, ``One Sweet Day`` (a duet with Boyz II Men) spent a still-record sixteen weeks at number-one, and ``Always Be My Baby`` topped the Hot 100 year-end airplay charts in 1996. Critics such as Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Bill Lamb embraced Daydream as her finest album yet at the time, and it was named one of the best albums of the year by publications such as the New York Times and TIME'' mag