Andrew Chan examines how Mariah Carey's constructional brilliance and 1993 house masterpiece Music Box shaped an entire era of pop music.
Like few pop-diva superstars of her time, Mariah Carey is a masterful songwriter and producer who knows how to work the constraints of the paradigmatic pop hit—its traditionally repetitive structures, its brevity—to her advantage.
“Dreamlover” has a stronger vintage flavor that Hall’s tracks for Mary J. Blige and Father MC, two Uptown Records stars who caught Mariah’s attention in the early ’90s. The song derives its throwback appeal from a looped sample of “Blind Alley,” a 1971 soul classic by the Emotions that has been frequently referenced by rap artists, most notably Big Daddy Kane.
In an era when house remixes were important promotional tools for pop artists hoping to make inroads into the influential gay club scene, Mariah forged a chemistry with Morales as strong as any she would share with future collaborators.
This strategy wasn’t common, but it wasn’t without precedent. Remixing has its roots in Jamaican music culture of the 1940s and ’50s, when DJs would cobble together multiple songs and excise their less-danceable sections to create a seamless experience for clubbers. This art form had to be witnessed live.
This remix opens with a build-up consisting of only piano and vocals, giving Mariah a long runway from which to blast off, before a swirling beat changes the course of the track a minute in. Kicking a song off with vocal fireworks is a strategy Cole and Clivillés had employed three years earlier in their remix of Mariah’s 1991 hit “Emotions,” which features a sparsely accompanied opening section in which Mariah plunges from the top of her belting register down to the basement of her range.
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