No female singer was more popular in the 1990s than Mariah Carey. Before the twins, Glitter, and an increasingly scarce wardrobe, Carey belted out hit after hit. The early part of the decade saw Carey stay within the confines of traditional R&B and pop. “Always Be My Baby,” from 1995’s Daydream, saw Carey start to break away with a more contemporary R&B sound:
Co-produced by Jermaine Dupri, “Always Be My Baby” featured Carey singing on a tire swing at a camp while two young campers sneak out and share a kiss underwater at a nearby lake. The video’s sweet, innocent plotline hid some of the song’s stalker-esque lyrics: “You’ll always be a part of me/I’m a part of you indefinitely/Boy don’t you know you can’t escape me.”
Rewatching the video now, it is easy to remember why Carey became popular in the first place. Her vocal range and ability was greater and stronger than many of her peers, and she had a knack for incorporating musical trends of the time in a way that was accessible to a mainstream audience.
As the 90s progressed, Carey leaned more heavily on R&B than pop, becoming the first mainstream artist to feature rappers on many of her songs and remixes. Indeed, many of the rap and hip-hop crossover songs that dominated the late 1990s and 2000s probably wouldn’t have existed without Carey’s help.
Today, Carey is better known for her celebrity and diva-like behavior than her music. Carey is reportedly working on the follow-up to her last studio album, 2007’s E=MC².
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