Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, and producer from Huntington, New York, with 19 Billboard Hot 100 number ones and a five-octave range topped by that whistle register. Butterfly (1997) and The Emancipation of Mimi (2005) are the starting points — and All I Want for Christmas Is You keeps returning to number one decades on. Shop Mariah Carey vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Mariah Carey was born in Huntington, New York on March 27 - her birth year is publicly listed as 1969 or 1970 (she has historically been ambiguous about her exact birth year). She is of mixed African American, Venezuelan, and Irish heritage. She signed with Columbia Records and released her self-titled debut Mariah Carey (1990), with the singles Vision of Love and Love Takes Time launching her commercial breakthrough. She has had 19 Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles - third only to the Beatles and Drake. Her 1994 song All I Want for Christmas Is You has become a international Christmas standard, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 - 25+ years after its original release. She is widely cited as the Queen of Christmas due to her extensive Christmas-themed cultural presence each holiday season. She has been involved in extensive musical theater and film work, including the 2009 film Precious. She has won five Grammy Awards.
Mariah Carey's sound combines R&B, contemporary R&B, pop, dance-pop, hip hop soul, gospel, and Christmas music with her distinctive five-octave vocal range (incorporating her signature whistle register), virtuosic vocal arrangements, and arrangements drawing on classic Whitney Houston-style R&B alongside her hip hop integration from the late-1990s onward.
Columbia, Virgin, and Island pressings of the Mariah Carey catalog have been issued in extensive color variant editions and elaborate limited deluxe pressings, with collector demand. Multiple anniversary editions of Daydream, Butterfly, and the Christmas catalog have been released.
Listeners new to Mariah Carey typically start with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005) or Butterfly (1997).
