Mariah Carey was flattered to hear of her eight nominations for the Grammys 2006. Her nominations include all three major categories. Not bad for a star who many thought had burnt out only a couple of years ago.
Her No. 1 hit “We Belong Together” is up for record of the year, song of the year, best female R&B vocal performance and best R&B song. Her album “The Emancipation of Mimi” (Island) is nominated for album of the year and best R&B album. Her single “It’s Like That” is nominated for best female pop vocal performance. And the album track “Mine Again” is up for best traditional R&B vocal performance.
Carey knows that firsthand. Island Records worked her previous album, “Charmbracelet,” just as hard in 2002. It featured appearances from Jay-Z and Cam’ron and songs co-written and produced by Jermaine Dupri, who had a hand in all four of Carey’s singles from “The Emancipation of Mimi.”
But “Charmbracelet” had disappointing sales and failed to yield any major hits. It began to appear that EMI - which wanted her to leave the label so badly after the disastrous “Glitter” soundtrack in 2001 and her erratic behavior during the album’s promotion that it paid her a reported $28 million to go away – may have been right.
Carey’s popularity with critics and the public entered a decline, and she was dropped from her new record label following a highly-publicised physical breakdown and an unsuccessful foray into film.
However, in 2005, Carey returned to the forefront of popular music with the release of her tenth multi-platinum album, and became the second solo recording artist in history to place seventeen singles at number one on the U.S. charts.
When she began work on “Mimi,” which is her family and friends’ nickname for her, Carey hired Benny Medina, best known for guiding Jennifer Lopez to superstardom, as her manager and took a hands-on approach for completing the album.
Kid Kelly, senior director of pop programming for Sirius Satellite Radio, says the first time he heard “Mimi,” he could tell something major had changed.
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