To celebrate her 30th anniversary Mariah is giving her fans EVERYTHING. Re-releases of EP's, long forgotten remixes, remastered albums on vinyl, a book. But the pierre de resistance is the release of an album of previous unreleased material called The rarities. Lambs lost it when the album was announced, but their sheepskin wigs be flying now that the tracklist to the album has been revealed after weeks of speculation as to what it would be.
- Here We Go Around Again (1990)
- Can You Hear Me (1991)
- Do You Think of Me (1993)
- Everything Fades Away (1993)
- All I Live For (1993)
- One Night (1995)
- Slipping Away (1996)
- Out Here on My Own (2000)
- Loverboy (Original "Firecracker" version) (2001)
- I Pray (2005)
- Cool on You (2007)
- Mesmerized (2012)
- Lullaby of Birdland (Live) (2014)
- Save the Day (2020)
- Close My Eyes (Acoustic) (2020)
I'm not gonna sit here and act like I know all of these songs, because I really don't. There are folk within the Lambdom that do, but I ain't one of them. Although I do know of a couple. The one song in the tracklist that's blown my mind is the original version of "Loverboy", and the story behind it is one that every Lamb knows. Even me.
The Glitter album marked Mariah's first album at Virgin records, following her departure from Columbia, whom she'd been signed to since the start of her career. The reason Mariah left Columbia once her contract was up was due to tensions with her ex-husband who was still the head of Columbia records and trying to sabotage Mariah's career following their divorce in 1997 (between the releases of Daydream and Butterfly). But unfortunately for Mariah, the sabotage wouldn't end, even when she left the label. Tommy Mottola wasn't just overseeing Columbia, but Sony music as a whole, which Epic records was a part of, the label to which Jennifer Lopez was signed. Mariah was recording her lead single for her first release on Virgin records, which was to use a sample from the Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Firecracker", something that Mariah's ex had caught wind of. And with Jennifer Lopez being the new pop star on the block and a new album set to release before Mariah's, she was given a song which used the Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Firecracker", that song being "I'm Real". I'm not gonna lie. That song was my shit and one of my faves from the J.Lo album.
Mariah was livid, and wasn't try'na hear 'bout no coincidences. She knew she'd been screwed over. As a result, she chose not to use "Firecracker" in the song as planned, but still put the song out. That song was "Loverboy", but we'd know it with Cameo's "Candy".
For Mariah to be so open about this song's troubled production history and even name the song she wanted to use shows how pissed she was at the situation, and that maybe she didn't even want to release "Loverboy" in the first place in any other form. No disrespect to Cameo's "Candy". We love Cameo, and we sure as hell love "Candy".
Once this story came to light, many a fan had done mash-ups of raggedy "Loverboy" a capella's and "Firecracker" to see how the song could have sounded. None of them quite sound right, which make me wonder if Mariah actually re-recorded all of her vocals when she switched out "Firecracker" for "Candy". Because even if you alter the keys of the vocals or the music, they don't quite fit because of the difference in melodies.
"Loverboy" is probably the biggest shocker in The Rarities tracklist, because nobody thought the original version of the song would ever see the light of day. It's also the song with the most well known history amongst the Lambily, and the beginning of Mariah shading the shit out of Jennifer Lopez and Lambs taking every opportunity to do the same.
Mariah's The Rarities will hit streaming on October 2nd, so save the date as well as the day. And if you're a ride or die lamb with funds to spare, you can purchase cool collector's bundles, as well as limited edition vinyls of her albums.
🛒 Buy you some shit: Mariah's online store
Mariah sure is keeping her Lambs fed during this pandemic.
🦋 Album reviews: Caution | Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel | E=MC² | Glitter
🔊 Playlist: Mariah Carey featuring...
🎛️ A mashup that nobody asked for: Mariah Carey x Sonic the Hedgehog
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