8. Mariah CareyDaydream
I had every Mariah Carey album, I was a huge fan, before I discovered Nina Simone or anybody cool. She’s one of these musicians who I grew up listening to who taught me to sing, but taught me a lot of bad habits too. I would do so many trills, trying to sing high to imitate her. It took a lot of years to get the Mariah out of my vocal. It took a lot of years listening to K.D. Lang, someone with a straight delivery, to iron out the Mariah Carey trills that were present in my singing because I’d grown up mimicking it.
There are just some amazing tunes, and there’s the sweet girl next door, and then she goes more risqué later on. There’s her in her high-waisted jeans running through fields, and then there’s her with the short mini dresses and straight long blonde hair, and then she gets some rap artist collaborating with her and then she’s bad Mariah and not the girl next door. Yeah, I just really like that album and I still put it on, but it’s kind of 90s nostalgia for someone who’s in their mid thirties like I am. When I put on a big song like ‘Fantasy’ in a DJ set there are the embarrassing mid-30s aunties like me inhabiting the dancefloor.
