(born March 27, 1970 in Huntington, New York) is an American pop and R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Making her debut in 1990, she became the most successful and best-selling artist of the decade, according to Billboard magazine and the World Music Awards.[1] In 2000, the World Music Awards show named her the best-selling female recording artist of all time.
Noted for her distinctive singing style, Carey possesses a five-octave vocal range, and her vocals make frequent use of melismas and other ornamentation. During the 1990s, she released fifteen U.S. number-one hits on Columbia Records, run by then-husband Tommy Mottola, several of which broke chart records. By the turn of the millennium, Carey's popularity with critics and the public had entered decline, and she was dropped from her new record label following a highly-publicised physical breakdown and an unsuccessful foray into film. In 2005, Carey returned to the forefront of R&B music with her multi-platinum album The Emancipation of Mimi, which spawned her sixteenth number-one single, "We Belong Together".
