| Thursday 17 September 2015 |
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Mariah in 1990: critics loved her, thought she was white
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When Mariah Carey entered the music world via her blockbuster self-titled debut in 1990, many critics hailed her practically peerless voice and parade of No. 1 hits. Some were less enthused, however, praising her technical talents but opining she needed to develop a more distinct musical approach.
Whether critics were right about Carey's style circa 1990 is a matter for discussion, but one prevalent viewpoint espoused by several writers 25 years ago is just plain wrong. Namely, that Mariah Carey is white.
As (hopefully) everyone knows at this point, Mariah Carey is not white - or perhaps more specifically, she's not just white. She's African-American and Venezuelan on her father's side and white Irish on her mother's. But publications from Los Angeles Daily News to Playboy to the Herald Sun described her as "white" throughout 1990, an error that at least two publications (New York Post and USA Today) wrote to correct.
In an article from December 6, 1990, Australia's Herald Sun described Carey as "the new white U.S. soul singer with a reputed eight-octave range". That's wrong on two counts: aside from not being white, Carey's range is five octaves.
An article from the Los Angeles Daily News (picked up in the November 8 edition of the Chicago Tribune) made the same mistake. The article is primarily about Billboard changing the name of its Hot Black Singles chart to Hot R&B Singles (the chart is now called Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs), but it erroneously mentions Carey as white in a one-off example. "The term 'black music' also has caused confusion when it includes releases by white artists. This week, Mariah Carey's debut album is high on the chart and, in past years, George Michael has had the No. 1 album on the chart," the article reads. (Incidentally, Michael's father was a Greek Cypriot, which many would argue isn't white.)
After Playboy ran an article about Carey in 1990 that described her as a "white girl who can sing", reports surfaced via New York Post that she was furious with the writer of the piece. Shortly after, a spokesperson for Carey set the record straight to USA Today.
"Mariah Carey's anger over a racial comment was blown out of proportion, says spokeswoman Judy Womack at Columbia Records," reads the November 20, 1990, USA Today article. "Friday, the New York Post reported that Carey was ready to 'sock black music critic Nelson George' because he called her a 'white girl who can sing' in his Playboy review of her self-titled album. 'My father was very upset,' Carey said. 'It seems that most people don't know much about interracial children.' Womack says the quote was taken out of context, and that Carey and George are friends."
The New York Times, at least, got one big thing right about Mariah at the outset of her career. In a December 26 year-end roundup piece, The Times noted that "the 20-year-old singer, who bears a marked vocal resemblance to Whitney Houston, shows the kind of talent that could have real commercial staying power".
(Billboard)
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B from USA wrote:
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Some still do. 
(Thursday 17 September 2015; 0:37)
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enwar00 from usa wrote:
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Why are people so obsessed with race? That new Billboard article was annoying to me. What's the purpose of pointing out that people thought MC was white 25 years ago? Why does that matter anymore? But luckily she's gonna be the first white person on Empire right?
(Thursday 17 September 2015; 0:39)
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Baby from Dreamville...Where There's No Beginning & There is No End wrote:
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I have a theory: The more (white bigoted) people who find out she isn't white and the more control over her own image she gained where she would beam with pride over her mixed heritage, especially the African-American part, the more likely they are to shun her. Mariah was always an R&B, Gospel and Soul-singer-songwriter, as most black artists are. It's only some people's perception of her that has changed and flip-flopped. Just look at her Grammy Awards 16 years apart: Best new Artist and Pop Vocal for Vision Of Love. VOL is a Gospel/R&B/Soul record. That's just a fact. It's not Pop. Pop is just another euphemism for what appeals to the greater white audience. And then came the Grammy drought, to the point where she was snubbed entirely in 1996 after delivering two massive diamond albums, Daydream in particular with its record breaking Billboard chart successes. Never mind how the stellar Butterfly was ignored even though it was clearly her best musical effort. Fast forward to 2006 and she finally gets to add three Grammies to her first two and they are all in the R&B category. It literally took 16 years for her to even be recognised and awarded by her genre peers. That's very strange no matter how you look at it for an artist of Mariah's calibre. You would think she hadn't done anything significant between her debut and TEOM. MIAMTEC was a #1 album on the R&B charts because that's her base. She will always do well there. So when certain posters go on and on about how Mariah needs to switch musical genres and work with people who have nothing to do with black music, when she's been an R&B artist her whole life, I find it interesting. Very interesting. My 2ยข.
(Thursday 17 September 2015; 6:27)
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