mariah carey

875. ‘Against All Odds’, by Mariah Carey ft. Westlife

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

In which Westlife, the regional champions of power balladry, come up against the reigning world champion. A contest for the ages…

Against All Odds, by Mariah Carey (her 2nd of three #1s) ft. Westlife (their 6th of fourteen #1s)

2 weeks, from 24th September – 8th October 2000

And at first, Westlife give a good account of themselves. They’re clearly pumped up for this duet, with lead singer Shane coming out all guns blazing for the opening verse. When Mariah takes over, meanwhile, she’s struggling to get out of second gear. She’s either warming up slowly, or can’t be arsed, and doing that husky, breathy voice that she does when she can’t, or won’t, reach the high notes.

Second verse comes along, and Mark takes over for Westlife, again singing as if his life depended on it, while his bandmates gamely back him up. It’s actually looking like Westlife might be about to take the title from Mariah, in one of the biggest upsets in power-ballad history. Until Mariah wakes up for chorus number two, and puts the lads right back in their place with some eyewatering over-singing, reaching notes that even Brian McFadden’s dog couldn’t hope to match. By the end, Westlife are essentially backing singers, and order has been restored.

Sadly my imagined scenario is not quite the truth, however, as this record was made by tacking Westlife’s vocals onto an already recorded solo version by Mariah. Which means the video, with Mariah and her adoring backing band in a recording studio, must be fake. I’m imagining an unfortunate lackey suggesting to Mariah that she might want to re-record her vocals, a lackey who never worked in music again and who still suffers PTSD from la Carey’s death-ray stare.

Musically this duet makes sense. But commercially, I’m not so sure. Westlife were at the peak of their powers, and whatever they released as the lead single from their second album was going to be massive. Mariah, though, despite her huge success in America, had never hit the same heights in the UK: fifteen US #1s to two UK #1s by 2000 bears this out. Plus, this was the very end of her imperious phase, with the infamous ‘Glitter’ less than a year away. Maybe she needed this duet more than Westlife…?

Interestingly, this record didn’t chart in the States. But in Britain, of course, things were different. It was big enough to spend two weeks at number one – no mean feat in 2000. It also adds to our growing list of classic #2s belatedly making #1, Phil Collins’ original having made runners-up spot in 1984. And it’s not the last time a version of ‘Against All Odds’ will feature at the top the charts, either. Take that as fair warning…

702. ‘Without You’, by Mariah Carey

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

Mariah Carey, one of the biggest-selling stars of the 1990s, is very poorly served in terms of the UK number ones she scored in that decade. Just the one, in fact. This one.

Without You, by Mariah Carey (her 1st of four #1s)

4 weeks, from 13th February – 13th March 1994

And I have to say, as much as I have a soft spot for ‘Mariah’ the camp icon – the ‘Cribs’ appearance, the ‘I don’t know her’ meme, all that nonsense – the fact that she didn’t dominate the British charts in the same way she took over the Billboard Hot 100 can only be a good thing. Yes, she can sing. No question. She takes Nilsson’s 1972 #1, and sings the absolute bejeezus out of it.

At one point, towards the end of this track, she extends the I can’t give any more… line for a full sixteen seconds, in a display of aggressive melisma. I can barely hold my breath for sixteen seconds, let alone belt out a succession of different musical notes for that length of time, and in purely technical terms it is very impressive. And yet, it’s these sorts of vocal gymnastics that ruin the song.

The same charges that were laid out against Whitney Houston as she whooped and hollered her way through ‘One Moment in Time’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’, can be made against Mariah here. Technically good singing will only get you so far, if you don’t mean what you’re howling about. Not in every song – plenty of decent pop songs can be churned out half-arsed – but in a torch song like this, with such a heartfelt original to compare it to, the difference shows. (Nilsson’s version, of course, wasn’t the original, but it is the version to which everyone compared Carey’s.)

Another comparison I can make between Mariah and Whitney is that I’ve always enjoyed Carey’s poppier moments more than her monster ballads. ‘Fantasy’, ‘Dreamlover’ and ‘Heartbreaker’ are all solid nineties pop tunes. What we also have to take into account, before complaining about her endless stream of ballads, is that she was tied in to a pretty controlling contract, and a pretty nasty relationship, with her manager Tommy Mottola.

I was under the impression that Harry Nilsson had died when this cover of his most famous hit was at #1, and was going to make a cheap joke about his cause of death. Except he had died a month before, in January 1994, at the very young age of fifty-two. I assume that Carey’s cover was already recorded by then, and wasn’t intended as a tribute, even if it did in the end become one. She had already had eight chart-toppers in the US, though ‘Without You’ stalled at #3 over there.

Younger readers may be surprised to discover that Mariah Carey actually had a recording career beyond a certain Christmas song, the name of which I dare not type out in case I accidentally get it stuck in my head. In truly shameless Mariah fashion, she’s really lent into her ‘Queen of Christmas’ alter-ego in recent years and, even as I sit here in late October, I’m counting down the days until her annual assault on the charts, and on our ears…