Mariah Carey's milestones

Vision of Love is Mariah Carey's debut single, but also popularized riffs, runs, melisma and the whistle register in mainstream pop music.

Mariah Carey's Vision of Love tune is also the blueprint for future female singers using her techniques.

During the climax of her own Vision of Love tune, Mariah Carey uses her whistle register, which she popularized; the inspiration for Mariah Carey's whistle register is Minnie Riperton.

In general, for Mariah Carey, Vision of Love emphasizes a crying Disney princess with a modern twist.

Someday is the first tune for Mariah Carey ever to be created in an upbeat and an uptempo situation.

Emotions is Mariah Carey's second studio album, which, besides its title track, features others, such as Can't Let Go, Make It Happen, etc.

For the title track of her second album, Emotions features Mariah Carey's upper range and her whistle register.

Unconfined to Mariah Carey's whistle register, Emotions also has disco, rhythm & blues and gospel.

Music Box features such songs as Dreamlover, Hero, Without You and Anytime You Need a Friend.

Dreamlover is Mariah Carey's first attempt to incorporate hip-hop into her songs, influenced by Dave Hall's work with fellow New Yorker Mary J. Blige.

Blind Alley by The Emotions samples Mariah Carey's Dreamlover tune.

Hero is deemed by many to be Mariah Carey's signature song, known for its message of finding inner strength and self-empowerment.

Without You is Mariah Carey's soulful cover version of the 1972 tune of the same name.

The music video for Anytime You Need a Friend marks Mariah Carey's first image change.

All I Want for Christmas is You is a modern Christmas anthem for Mariah Carey, which blends various music genres, like pop, rhythm & blues, soul and gospel.

Furthermore, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You also mixes 1960's rock and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, especially in its structure and instrumentation.

With Dreamlover being Mariah Carey's first attempt to have the hip-hop genre, Fantasy solidified this direction; its remix, featuring ODB, is produced by Puff Diddy, who worked with Mary J. Blige.

Puff Diddy's remix of Mariah Carey's Fantasy popularizes the trend of rap verses in pop tunes.

Genius of Love by Tom Tom Club samples Mariah Carey's Fantasy.

In 1997, Mariah Carey released Butterfly.

From 1993 to 1997, Mariah Carey had a marriage with her manager Tommy Mottola, during which the latter controlled her image, making her feel like a prisoner or child bride.

Honey's music video marks a step up for Mariah Carey to embrace a more liberated and overtly sexual image, in contrast to the traditional and demure persona she has cultivated.

The main reason Mariah Carey started to utilize a more sexual image for her Honey music video is the break-up of her husband Tommy Mottola.

Butterfly's title track features Mariah Carey, for the first time, delivering a whispery tone that is high in pitch, yet soft in sound.

Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston have their pop rendition of the Stephen Schwartz song When You Believe from The Prince of Egypt.

Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds made When You Believe a success for both Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.

What fits When You Believe as a collaboration between both Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey is a smooth blend of their soulful voices and their backgrounds in faith and gospel music.

Plus, for both Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, When You Believe is on par with Disney ballads.

The cover version of the late-1980's Brenda K. Starr tune I Still Believe, for whose original version she does backup, is a moderate worldwide success for Mariah Carey.

Incidentally, singing backup for Brenda K. Starr is Mariah Carey's first major professional gig.

For Mariah Carey, she delivers her version of the Brenda K. Starr song I Still Believe as a tribute and a way to say thanks to her former collaborator.

Heartbreaker is Mariah Carey's sixteenth Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping hir.

We Belong Together is Mariah Carey's historic commercial comeback, coming after her debacle being caused by her own widely-publicized breakdown and 9/11.

For We Belong Together by Mariah Carey, it has a crying-in-the-club aesthetic.

Don't Forget About Us and Touch My Body are Mariah Carey's 17th and 18th chart-topping hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

Obsessed is the last top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for Mariah Carey until 2017.

All I Want for Christmas is You finally topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the last month before the 2020's (and of the 2010's), making it Mariah Carey's 19th and most recent chart-topping hit.

Plus, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You tune reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 2017, which makes it her first top 10 hit since Obsessed in 2009.

During her long career, Mariah Carey has endured connections to Old Hollywood, particularly Marilyn Monroe, with whom she has been obsessed since childhood.

The music video for Mariah Carey's own cover version of I Still Believe is based upon the 1954 visit to South Korea for a USO tour by her idol Marilyn Monroe.

Plus, the music video for Mariah Carey's Butterfly takes inspiration from the 1950's film Baby Doll, in which Marilyn Monroe's friends Elia Kazan and Carroll Baker were involved.

At the curtain call of the musical version of the 1950's comedy film Some Like It Hot, starring her idol Marilyn Monroe, Mariah Carey has a surprise appearance and narrates the instructions.

What motivated Mariah Carey to be a co-producer for this musical iteration of Some Like It Hot is her passion for the leading star of the original film version named Marilyn Monroe.

Plus, Mariah Carey, a lifelong admirer of Marilyn Monroe, has the latter's white baby grand piano.

Gladys Pearl Baker, who is Marilyn Monroe's mother, first used the baby grand piano.

Having been institutionalized, Gladys Pearl Baker's baby grand piano is lost until her young daughter Marilyn Monroe tracks this instrument down, using a white colour to match her decor.

Lee Strasberg, who was Marilyn Monroe's acting coach in New York, inherited this white baby grand piano after her 1962 death; 20 years later, it was passed over to his second wife Anna.

In the late-1990's era, Mariah Carey, a lifelong admirer of Marilyn Monroe, purchased the white baby grand piano, which she has kept since in a museum.

Cinderella is a Disney film about the title character, released in 1950 as Marilyn Monroe was about to enter her breakthrough year in Hollywood.

Just like Mariah Carey, both Cinderella (Disney) and Marilyn Monroe follow the rags-to-riches story.

For Cinderella (Disney), she is a girl whose death of a parent made her a servant.

Similarly, Marilyn Monroe is a girl whose mother worked in the film industry, but whose mental health issues that her mother caused led to her living in foster homes.

As for Mariah Carey, she is a girl whose upbringing was lower-income.

In addition, like Mariah Carey, both Cinderella (Disney) and Marilyn Monroe embark on a makeover central to their legacies.

Having been a maid since her father's death, Cinderella (Disney) embarks on a makeover that the Fairy Godmother facilitated; her transformation is magical.

Marilyn Monroe's transformation is a carefully crafted studio revolution, with her hair dyed blonde and her name change to become a global pop culture/sex/beauty icon.

For Mariah Carey, the shift of her hair colour to blonde with honey and caramel hues, together with her hairstyle shift to straight, comes in the Honey era after her 1997 break-up with Tommy Mottola.

Besides, like Mariah Carey, both Cinderella (Disney) and Marilyn Monroe also have a dramatic rise in social status.

Cinderella (Disney) ascends from a servant into a princess, Marilyn Monroe ascends from an unstable childhood into a global icon, and Mariah Carey also does the same as Marilyn Monroe.

To differences, Cinderella (Disney) is fictional, whereas Marilyn Monroe, just like Mariah Carey, has a real-life ascent from a young obscure girl into a world-famous sex symbol.