The story behind @MariahCareys We Belong Together! Mariah needed a miracle. In November 2004 she was still mired in a deep slump that was on the verge of killing her career (Glitter, anyone?). But she had a full albums worth of hot new material in the can that she was sure would rocket her back to multiplatinum status. However, Mariahs label boss, L.A. Reid, thought she needed a little insurance, and suggested she try just one more session to sprinkle some final fairy dust on her emancipation proclamation, The Emancipation of Mimi. L.A. was like, You and Jermaine Dupri make magic together, why arent you in the studio with him? Carey recalled. I said, I love Jermaine, is he free? I know hes doing a million things, Usher and this and that. But Jermaine said, Come on down. Dupri, of course, is one of the biggest hitmakers of the past 20 years, having crafted hits for Usher, TLC, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Nelly, Aaliyah, Kris Kross and many others in addition to Mariah. When she arrived at Dupris studio in Atlanta the next day, the two of them worked nonstop, popping off two songs in two days: Get Your Number and Shake It Off. Up to that point, Carey and Reid had planned to make Say Somethin, a collaboration with Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams, her new albums first single. But once Reid heard the Dupri-helmed songs, Carey recalled, He was like, Oh no! Now weve got to change the single, make these singles one and two. Carey agreed. Nobody could tell me that Shake It Off wasnt going to be my first single. It was my favorite song, just from the demo. Dupri had quickly sized up what he felt the album needed. The records that I made are very melodic records, regardless of their hip-hop influence, Dupri said. I think thats what she was missing. And since he and Mariah had come up with those two songs in two days, why stop? Then it was like, You want to go back down to Atlanta again? she said. So the pair teamed up again, coming up with Its Like That and We Belong Together - the first two songs in the albums final sequence - in two days. We said, OK, we love Shake It Off, Carey recalled. We dont know how were going to top that, but lets just try. It turned out that Its Like That was the right fire-starter, and We Belong Together was the bigger record. We Belong Together - which is nominated for Grammys in both the Record of the Year and Song of the Year categories - became Careys sweet 16: her 16th #1 hit, the most ever by a female artist. (Mariah has since broken her own record with Dont Forget About Us.) Dupri may deserve as much credit for what he got Mariah not to do. For someone so associated with multi-octave vocal gymnastics (look up melisma in the dictionary and youll see a picture of Mariah), Carey is a model of restraint on We Belong Together: She doesnt even raise her voice until the song is near its end. She sings the chorus as if she actually were resigned to not having what she wants, and that understated approach makes the song far more powerful than it would have been if shed belted it. People have to learn the art of subtlety, she said. We realized that once we did it, it was an inspiration in terms of how I was singing it. It was obvious that if it was touching us, it was going reach other people too. Carey also reversed her usual technique of singing as many notes per syllable as she possibly can, and her comparatively spare, hip-hop-inspired delivery is what pushes the song forward (the instrumental backing is primarily a beat and just a few simple piano chords). We just went back and forth with concepts for the beat and melodic ideas, which I didnt expect from Jermaine, because usually Im the one that dictates the entire melody, Carey said. But he had some really great ideas. The rest of the song is classic heartbreak. For the second verse, Mariah said she and Jermaine had a pow-wow, trying to figure out what it makes certain songs so special, how they just hit you, and youre like, Oh, man! You know? They came up with Bobby Womacks If You Think Youre Lonely Now and Babyfaces Two Occasions, which Carey quotes in We Belong Together as she flips across a radio dial: I gotta change the station/ So I turn the dial, tryin to catch a break/ And then I hear Babyface/ I only think of you and its breaking my heart/ Im trying to keep it together but Im falling apart. Carey reverses the melancholy at the end with vocal lifts that imply shes bound to get her hearts desire anyway, through sheer determination. Kind of like the way shes revived her career. Its like, damn, two years ago she was the craziest person in the funny farm, and that [image] dont even exist no more, Dupri said. And she never got nominated this many times when she was the Mariah of old. It felt like the rebirth of the person you know as Mariah Carey. I am so grateful I went to Atlanta, Carey said. And I have to say, we wrote some of my favorite songs on the album. Im so proud of Jermaine - hes so focused, and he knew what had to be done. You can never write off talent. Especially not her own. Source: MTV News (2006) Pics: We Belong Together Photo Shoot / Photographer: Markus Klinko & Indrani
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:30:00 +0000
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