Mariah Carey at 50: Her best 10 songs, ranked

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She bathes in milk. She sleeps with 20 humidifiers in her room to care for her voice. She stormed out of Obama’s inauguration ceremony because she wasn’t placed on the same table as the First Couple. She is our favourite diva. She is Mariah Carey.

The pop legend was born in Long Island, New York, in 1970. Despite an initially slow response, her debut album reached number one in the US charts, went multi-platinum and led to Grammy Awards for Best Female Vocalist and Best New Artist.

Since that moment Carey’s distinctive high-pitched harmonies and melismatic runs have continued to define pop music. With record sales of 54 million, she is one of the bestselling female artists of all time.

10. Obsessed

This heavily autotuned diss track was written in response to Eminem’s claims that Carey had dated him. “Obsessed” includes scorching lyrics such as: “Finally found a girl that you couldn’t impress/ Last man on the earth, still couldn’t get this”. Eleven years since its original release, “Obsessed” is enjoying renewed interest after a video of TikTok user Reese Hardy crying while dancing to it went viral.

9. We Belong Together

Released in 2005 “We Belong Together” was Carey’s big comeback track after a few years out of the spotlight. Another love song, the song saw her at number one in the US for a huge 14 weeks. She said of recording the ballad: “I had the chills. I had a great feeling about it when we finished writing the song, and I was flying back from Atlanta at some crazy hour of the morning... But we were listening to it on the plane ride on the way home, and even from the demo version, I really felt something very special.”

8. Heartbreaker

Released after her divorce from music executive Tommy Mottola, "Heartbreaker" tells the story of a man who never lives up to his promises. With a budget of $2.5m (£2m), the video for this Jay-Z duet has one of the most expensive music videos ever made. Carey stars in it as herself and as her evil twin.

7. Without You

This karaoke go-to was Carey’s first and only solo number one hit in the UK. “Without You” is one of Carey’s many fabulous covers; the original was released by Harry Nilsson and she decided to rerecord it after hearing it in a restaurant. “I just knew it would be a huge international hit,” she said of the experience of hearing it for the first time.

6. When You Believe

Despite rumours that the two pop legends hated each other, Carey joined Whitney Houston to sing “When You Believe” for the soundtrack of Disney's The Prince of Egypt. Houston said of working with Mariah: “I enjoyed working with her very much. Mariah and I got along very great. We had never talked and never sang together before. We just had a chance for camaraderie, singer-to-singer, artist-to-artist, that kind of thing.”​

5. Always Be My Baby

Critically and commercially successful, "Always Be My Baby" was co-written by Carey alongside Seal and Jermaine Dupri. The song includes heavy background vocals of her lower registers, with Carey creating a double-voice effect by belting out the higher notes over the top. When asked about his experience of working with the singer, Dupri said: “She can pretty much do anything with her voice.”

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4. Emotions

Carey is known for her angelic top notes and there’s not one song where she shows them off better than “Emotions”. Singing about a new found love, her voice flutters up and down an impressive four octaves. Musically, “Emotions” borrows heavily from Seventies disco to create a winning formula that went on to win her another number one in the US.

3. All I Want For Christmas

Christmas means pigs in blankets, but it also means Carey’s "All I Want For Christmas" blasting out of the radio. The lyrics might be about how she doesn’t want a lot, just her lover, but she got a lot anyway: selling more than 16 million copies worldwide, "All I Want" is the 11th biggest selling single of all time and has earned over $60m (£55m) in royalties.

2. Fantasy

This hip-hop and R&B-inspired track heavily samples “Genius of Love” by Tom Tom Club. Of the decision to draw from the 1981 funk hit, Carey said: “It reminded me of growing up and listening to the radio and that feeling the song gave me seemed to go with the melody and basic idea I had for 'Fantasy'.” The song tells the story of a woman’s obsession with a man and it went on to become Carey’s ninth number one single on the Billboard Hot 100.

1. Hero

This inspirational ballad was made for the 1992 Dustin Hoffman film of the same name. Even though it is said to have been recorded in two hours it went onto become a number one hit in the US and it was one of her first top 10 songs in the UK. According to Hero’s co-author, Walter Afanasieff, Carey was initially unsure about recording it. “It was never meant for Carey to sing,” he said. “In her mind, we were writing a song for Gloria Estefan.” But after some convincing, she changed its overall sound to suit her style, and the rest is history.