Songoftheday 12/27/17 - In the morning when I rise, you are the first thing on my mind...
from the album Emotions (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 20
Today's song of the day comes from Mariah Carey, whose self-titled debut album had landed four #1 pop hit singles in America with "I Don't Wanna Cry", "Someday", "Love Takes Time", and "Vision Of Love", the latter winning her a Grammy for Female Vocal Performance in 1991. She also grabbed the award for Best New Artist that year as well. That same year, Mariah recorded her sophomore effort, Emotions. However, legal disputes between her and her record company with pre-fame collaborator Ben Margulies, who co-wrote over half of her first album, killed their friendship and work partnership. Turning to Walter Afanasieff, who produced "Love Takes Time", and the team behind the C+C Music Factory, Rob Clivillés and David Cole, she came out with a resulting set that sounded more youthful and tuned into a younger audience than her classy soft-pop debut. The first single from the record, the title track "Emotions", was one of the four Clivillés and Cole productions, and had a neo-disco thump very very much like the 70s classic "Best Of My Love" (by, hmmmm, the Emotions). You can hear the house music influence as well in the piano chords and keyboard flourishes. Nevertheless, the girl-group-style vocal interplay between the lead and backup vocal tracks (sung by Mariah herself with Trey Lorenz and David Cole) became yet another big hit on mainstream radio. In fact, the song stayed longer in the top-40 than any single that peaked in 1991...
"Emotions" became Mariah's fifth consecutive #1 pop hit in the U.S. in October of 1991, the first artist or group to have that many chart-toppers as their first five singles. The track also spent a week on top of Billboard's R&B chart (her third after "Love Takes Time" and "Vision Of Love"), and also took a week at #3 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format tally. The 12" vinyl/CD single remixes, reworked by Clivillés and Cole, helped the song go to #1 on their Dance Club Play list as well (her second after "Someday") Internationally, the record topped the singles chart in Canada for a week, went to #3 in New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in Australia (#11), the Netherlands (#13), the UK (#17), Ireland (#27), Sweden (#30), and Germany (#39).
In 1992, Mariah again was nominated for a Grammy for Pop Female Vocal Performance, but this time lost out to Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About". Her Emotions album also was nommed for a Soul Train Award for album of the year, which went to Natalie Cole's Unforgettable.
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Here's Mariah appearing on the Arsenio Hall show to promote the new single...
The club remix to "Emotions" was one of the first big transformation productions of Clivillés and Cole, using a dominating house music bassline and a completely new arrangement to make it a dancefloor banger...
Back to Mariah singing live to a backing track on the Wogan Show in Britain...
Here's Arsenio again introducing Mariah at the 1991 MTV Video Music awards, with David Cole joining the backup singers...
"Emotions" kicked up Carey's MTV Unplugged EP, proving the song stood on its own without the house music notes...
She was one of the few who would appear singing live (again, to a backing track) on Soul Train, running new vocal riffs along the way...
Here she is on her Butterfly tour in 1998...
In 2012, Ariana Grande covered the song for YouTube before even the release of her own debut album...
And finally, just from earlier this month in New York City for her holiday show...
As a bonus, here's the mashup of "Emotions" and "Best of My Love", one of many that had found its way onto radio to give a side-eye to the similarities...
Up tomorrow: Speed metal band goes bigtime by going to sleep.
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