MARIAH CAREY – RAINBOW 2LP – Nr MINT A1 1999 SOUL R&B HIP HOP

Mariah Carey – Rainbow
(Columbia Records  1999  4950651)
Matrix No’s: A1/B1/C1/D1

Gatefold Sleeve in Nr MINT condition
– tiny dink on the bottom edge left corner
Inner Sleeves in Nr MINT condition

Double Vinyl in Nr MINT condition

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. In 1990, she rose to fame with the release of “Vision of Love” from her eponymous debut album. The album produced four chart-topping singles in the US and began what would become a string of commercially successful albums which solidified the singer as Columbia Records‘ highest selling act. Carey and Boyz II Men spent a record sixteen weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 1995–1996 with “One Sweet Day,” which remains the longest-running number-one song in US chart history. Following a contentious divorce from Sony Music head Tommy Mottola, Carey adopted a new image and traversed towards hip hop with the release of Butterfly (1997). In 1998, she was honored as the world’s best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the World Music Awards and subsequently named the best-selling female artist of the millennium in 2000.

Carey parted with Columbia in 2000, and signed a record-breaking $100 million recording contract with Virgin Records America. In the weeks prior to the release of her film Glitter and its accompanying soundtrack in 2001, she suffered a physical and emotional breakdown and was hospitalized for severe exhaustion. The project was poorly received and led to a general decline in the singer’s career. Carey’s recording contract was bought out for $50 million by Virgin and she signed a multi-million dollar deal with Island Records the following year. After a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of music charts with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005). The album became the best-selling album in the US and the second-best-seller worldwide in 2005 and produced “We Belong Together,” which became her most successful single of the 2000s, and was later named “Song of the Decade” by Billboard. Carey once again ventured into film with a well-received supporting role in Precious (2009), and was awarded the “Breakthrough Performance Award” at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Throughout her career, Carey has sold more than 200 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. According to the RIAA, she is the third-best-selling female artist in the United States, with 63.5 million certified albums. With the release of “Touch My Body” (2008), Carey gained her 18th number-one single in the United States, more than any other solo artist. In 2012, the singer was ranked second on VH1’s list of the “100 Greatest Women in Music.” Aside from her commercial accomplishments, Carey has won 5 Grammy Awards, 19 World Music Awards, 11 American Music Awards, and 14 Billboard Music Awards and has been consistently credited with inspiring a generation of singers. Referred to as the “songbird supreme” by the Guinness World Records, she has a five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style and signature use of the whistle register.

Rainbow is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter and producer Mariah Carey. It was released on November 2, 1999, by Columbia Records. The album followed the same pattern as Carey’s previous two albums, Daydream (1995) and Butterfly (1997), in which she began her transition into the urban market. Rainbow contains a mix of hip hop-influenced R&B jams, as well as a variety of slow ballads. On the album, Carey worked with David Foster and Diane Warren, who, as well as Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, replaced Walter Afanasieff, the main balladeer Carey worked with throughout the 90s. As a result of her separation from her husband, Tommy Mottola, Carey had more control over the musical style of this album, so she collaborated with several urban artists such as Jay-Z, Usher, and Snoop Dogg, as well as Missy Elliott, Joe, Da Brat, Master P, 98°, and Mystikal.

On Carey’s previous album, Butterfly, she began incorporating several other genres, including R&B and hip hop, into her musical repertoire. In order to further push her musical horizons, Carey featured Jay-Z on the album’s lead single, the first time in her career that another artist was featured on one of her lead singles. Carey wrote ballads that were closer to R&B than pop for this album, and worked with Snoop Dogg and Usher on songs such as “Crybaby” and “How Much,” both of which featured strong R&B beats and grooves. Several of the ballads that Carey wrote during this period, including “Thank God I Found You” (written with Lewis) and “After Tonight” (written with Warren), mirrored sentiments she experienced in her personal life.

Five singles were released from the album, two of which became number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making Rainbow her seventh-consecutive studio album to produce a number-one song. The album’s lead single, “Heartbreaker” featuring Jay-Z, became Carey’s fourteenth number-one hit on the Hot 100, and topped the charts in Canada and New Zealand. “Thank God I Found You,” featuring Joe and 98 Degrees, also topped the Hot 100, but achieved moderate international charting. The next two singles, “Can’t Take That Away (Mariah’s Theme) and “Crybaby” featuring Snoop Dogg, were released as a double A-side. The songs were at the center of a public feud in between Carey and Sony due to Sony’s alleged weak promotion of the singles. Carey’s cover of Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” with Westlife peaked at number one in Ireland, Scotland, and the United Kingdom.

Rainbow was well received by critics, who generally praised Carey’s embrace of R&B and hip hop in her music. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, with first week sales of 323,000. It was her first album in years to not reach number one. However, within a month, Rainbow was certified triple-Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of three million copies within the United States. Internationally, the album peaked at number one in France and charted within the top five in Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. The album has sold an estimated eight million copies worldwide.

Track listing

Personnel