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The adventures of Mariah


Mariah Carey was overlooked in this week's Oscar nominations, took a pass on the Grammys and won't be singing at the Superbowl this weekend. And what about that incident in Florida last month? The pop superstar gave a rambling acceptance speech at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, leading to widespread speculation that she was drunk. Millions watched the online video depicting the elegantly dressed Carey. Smiling sweetly, she stumbled over her words and cut off sentences with a throaty laugh as she accepted the "Breakthrough Actress Performance" award for her role in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.
What's going on with Mimi, fans wondered. Are we seeing the exalted diva fade, ungracefully, from the limelight? Far from it, I'd say. As she begins the year of her 40th birthday, the five-octave singer is a creative dynamo who appears to be making the most of her charmed existence. Her worst sin right now might be that she's having too much fun.
Among Carey's many reasons to celebrate are a happy marriage, a hit album, a new fragrance and the satisfaction of a job well done for her role in the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. She plays a social worker, a gig that required her to skip the makeup and fancy clothes. Although Carey wasn't nominated for an Oscar for her excellent performance, the film is up for six awards, including best picture, and she picked up an award for "Breakthrough Actress Performance" at the Palm Springs festival.
Carey has also embarked on a major tour, her first in three years, pulling into Scotiabank Place Saturday. Remarkably, it's her first concert in the nation's capital. The "Angels Advocate" excursion follows the release of her 12th studio album, the aptly titled Confessions of an Imperfect Angel, which went to No. 1 on Billboard's R&B charts and inspired People magazine editors to declare her one of the top 10 most intriguing people of 2009.
The disc is one of her better ones, by the way, full of slow R&B jams and big ballads, including a gospel-drenched cover of the 1980s Foreigner nugget, I Want to Know What Love Is. As for the love of her life, Carey has been married for about a year and a half to Nick Cannon, the multi-media rapper/comedian/entertainment mogul who's a decade younger than Carey. In a recent interview with Elle magazine, she's described as a "smitten newlywed". He bought her a chalet in Aspen, CO for Christmas last year, and a puppy.
Really, the only reason fans might be worried about her tipsy on-camera behaviour is because she's been there before, and it wasn't a pretty sight. In 2001, Carey had a breakdown, reportedly brought on by overwork and lack of sleep. Her behaviour became erratic, and not long after her infamous striptease during an MTV interview, she was admitted to a New York hospital for supervised care.
"The funny thing is, when I realize how young I was when I first started in this business, and how it was all crazy and nothing seemed real; I sort of haven't taken a break since then," she said in an interview before the emotional collapse. "So it all seems like one continuous day."
Until that point, Carey life's followed a Cinderella-like arc. Born in Long Island, NY, the daughter of an Irish-American mother and Afro-Venezuelan-American father, her parents divorced when she was three. Carey was raised by her mom, who worked three jobs but also liked to sing opera. After hearing little Mariah imitate her, Mama Carey began teaching her to sing.
Carey signed her first recording contract at 17. At 23, she married Tommy Mottola, the much older music-industry exec who discovered her at a party. Although he helped guide her career to superstardom with her first album, the marriage lasted less than five years. She later described him as controlling.
With her first album, Carey helped define the genre of contemporary R&B, taking it into the mainstream with slickly produced love songs like Vision of Love and Love Takes Time, both from her chart-topping, Grammy-winning 1990 self-titled debut. The disc sold millions around the world.
After the split with Mottola, Carey began to introduce elements of hip hop into her music. Between 1997 and 2002, a string of albums with girlie names - Butterfly, Rainbow, Glitter and Charmbracelet - found Carey collaborating with rappers and hip-hop producers. Sales began to slide, though, along with the rest of the music industry, and Carey lost her record deal. She kept writing.
In 2005, Carey released The Emancipation of Mimi, her songwriting energized by the influence of '70s and '80s soul and disco. A bevy of Grammy Awards marked her comeback as a pop superstar, and the monster hit, We Belong Together, was declared the song of the decade by Billboard magazine.
Clearly, things have been going well. Carey also has a remix album due next month and is part of Simon Cowell's fundraising single for Haiti, an all-star version of REM's Everybody Hurts that also features Susan Boyle and Leona Lewis. So let's not judge the American diva too harshly over her latest display of poor judgement. She's an artist, after all, with the passion and drama of all artists. And besides, she was probably promoting her new line of champagne to everyone at the table that night.

(Ottawa Citizen)

Thursday 4 February 2010
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