Songoftheday 5/24/18 - You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back...
from the album MTV Unplugged (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14
Today's song of the day is from Mariah Carey, whose sophomore album Emotions had score a trio of huge pop hits with "Make It Happen", "Can't Let Go", and the #1 title track "Emotions". However, after a string of seven top-5 singles, she hadn't toured beyond scattered talk show appearances, so to appease her fans and silence her critics, Mariah appeared on the MTV show Unplugged. Normally home to rock bands unplugging their guitars, this gig was meant to show that Carey wasn't just a studio concoction. Rushed to market shortly after the peak of "Make It Happen", Unplugged was a seven-song EP/VHS of performances from the show, with three songs from each of her albums, as well as a song she's never released before. It was a cover of the Jackson Five's Motown classic "I'll Be There", written by Berry Gordy, Willie Hutch, Bob West, and Hal Davis, with the latter producing the record, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970...
Mariah's take goes for a delivery not far at all from young Michael's, and with backup singer Trey Lorenz filling the counter-lead role, gave him enough of a push to start his own career...
Carey's stunning take on "I'll Be There" returned her to the top of the American pop chart in June of 1992. The single also spent two weeks atop Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, although it would be her first to miss the top ten of their R&B chart at #11. Internationally, the song reached #1 in Canada (for two weeks), The Netherlands, and New Zealand, and hit the top ten in the UK (#2), Ireland (#3), Belgium (#4), and Norway (#10). Her version was nominated for a Grammy Award for R&B Duo/Group Performance (crediting Lorenz as a co-lead), but it lost out to Boyz II Men's "End Of The Road". A second single from the EP, "If It's Over", was only given a limited release and not in America; nevertheless it peaked at #80 in the Netherlands.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's Mariah from her electric "Live" show in 1993...
It could be said that Boyz II Men's Wanya Morris made up for winning the Grammy Mariah was nominated for by appearing with her in concert for this DVD clip from 1995...
And reuniting with Lorenz for her Around The World special...
Finally, Mariah and Trey performed "I'll Be There" at the Michael Jackson Memorial after his death...
Up tomorrow: A couple of music icons take the cheap route.
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