If there were a Grammy for best album title, Mariah Carey would already have next year’s award in the bag. On Tuesday, the singer drops her latest album, the fantastically christened “Me. I Am Mariah . . . The Elusive Chanteuse.” The name is partially inspired by a drawing she did when she was 3 years old. According to a spoken word track on the new album, the “elusive chanteuse” part comes from a recent nickname dubbed by an unnamed friend.
But put it all together and you’ve got a title that is batty, ridiculously entertaining — and completely Mariah. In the space of those seven words, the Long Island girl has shown the world that, although the quality of her music may have wavered over the years, no one can outdo her when it comes to being larger than life.
The best pop stars are usually the most eccentric — the ones who look and behave like they’ve been beamed in from another planet. As someone who claimed to be from Mars, David Bowie was an almost literal embodiment of that idea during his Ziggy Stardust era. Michael Jackson built and lived in his own fairy-tale world called Neverland — a concept which fascinated almost as much as his music did.
As for Carey, she’s seemingly taken a page from her pop predecessors and created her own surreal fantasy life — and watching her live it is never less than thrilling. That’s why it’s a relief to have the Queen of Crazy back to entertain us.
Carey has been brazenly bonkers for almost her entire career. Take her 2002 appearance on “MTV Cribs,” for instance. She changed her outfit in almost every scene, revealed a jaw-dropping hair salon in the middle of her apartment and exercised in heels. And even when she wasn’t wearing said heels, she still walked on her tiptoes as if she were. It was easily one of the most memorable episodes in the show’s history — and put all other celeb cribs to shame. Case in point: Two years earlier, Beyoncé appeared on the very same show with Destiny’s Child, who showed the world their shared suburban Houston McMansion and a fridge filled with milk, bread and A.1. steak sauce.
Carey’s demands on tour and at public appearances have long been the stuff of legend — from the white kitten to the first-class jetliner seats for her dog to the $50,000 antique table for an album signing in London in 2008.
And why not? According to Nielsen SoundScan (which started tracking US sales in 1991, shortly after the release of Carey’s self-titled debut), she is the best-selling female album artist of all time. Given the drop-off in industry sales figures in recent years, it’s unlikely anyone will ever match her — so no, an ergonomically designed IKEA table will not do for an autograph signing. Give that to Christina Aguilera.
Carey did get a little too crazy on the MTV series “TRL” back in 2001 when, while promoting her equally inexplicable movie “Glitter,” she unexpectedly stormed into the studio and handed out ice cream before frantically declaring to shocked host Carson Daly, “You’re my therapy session.” Just a few days later, she checked into a hospital, citing “extreme exhaustion.”
Delightfully, Carey’s fabulous antics have continued into middle age.
The 44-year-old’s Instagram is a must-follow account, filled with wonderfully preposterous shots. On Valentine’s Day, she snapped herself kicking back in a bath and sipping Champagne like a glittery Cleopatra — only the tub was filled not with bubbles, but balloons. On Easter, she treated her fans to a shot of herself and husband Nick Cannon as bunnies cavorting on a lawn. And on Halloween, she dressed up as Goldilocks, while Cannon and her kids were the three bears.
And did we mention her kids? They’re called Monroe (who is relatively sanely named after Marilyn Monroe — Carey owns the late legend’s grand piano) and Moroccan, who got his name from a room in Carey’s Bel Air house. You know, the Moroccan room.
Compare this fanfare with the antics of someone like Lady Gaga, who tries so hard to be over-the-top with her costumes and public stunts, it’s as though they were dreamed up by a specially commissioned think tank. You can almost see the flop sweat of effort. Mariah, meanwhile, comes by her eccentricities effortlessly.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that Carey turned out this way. She was a star at age 20, and three years later, in 1993, married her manager Tommy Mottola, who was a controlling force in both her personal and professional life during their five-year marriage.
He reportedly spied on her friends, employed security guards to escort her to the bathroom and tried to keep the singer performing ballads rather than exploring any other more adventurous genres. After that, who wouldn’t decide to do her own thing, no matter what anyone else thinks?
And now, Carey is her own woman. She’s a diva, a princess and a chanteuse, but most important, she is Mariah — and don’t you forget it, dahling!