While Madonna is no stranger to being her own Master of Shade, it has always been, in this particular dynamic, Mariah Carey to keep the rhythm of, well, overt cuntery going. She’s really batted the shuttlecock back this time, too. For despite her successful recording career, there can be no denying that Mariah has never had the same, shall we say, “non-manufactured” quality as Madonna, who has more personality, chutzpah and charisma in her left ovary than Mariah does in her entire filler-packed body.
Speaking of fillers, a cosmetic upkeep in the celebrity world as commonplace as teeth brushing, Madonna was the trailblazer on this front (as she has been with most things) before Mariah herself was forced to reckon with “getting old”–as though not understanding that insulting a woman for her age while you’re younger is guaranteed to bite you in the ass later, when you yourself look like an ill-proportioned stuffed turkey. And it is Madonna’s facial nips and tucks as they relate to her age being the only “characteristic” worth commenting on that men and women alike have misogynistically hurled back at her as their go-to form of tearing down her accomplishments. Mariah was no exception to the rule of going for Madonna’s jugular in this way (long before M even got any majorly noticeable facial adjustments, because she was not, in fact, “old” in the 90s) when she felt attacked by the Queen of Pop after a January 1996 interview for Spin, the comments of which were leaked in late 1995. Hence, Mariah’s famous vitriolic response at a press conference in London in December ‘95: “I really haven’t paid attention to Madonna since I was in like seventh or eighth grade when she used to be popular, so I didn’t…” The laughter of the crowd takes her off the hook of finishing her sentence.
Apart from Mariah’s math not adding up that well considering she would have been in seventh grade in 1982, when Madonna had yet to burst onto the scene in any meteoric way, her lashing out clearly stemmed from a continued place of her own insecurity about being constantly accused of genericness in pretty much any review of her albums. And indeed, there’s no arguing that Carey’s lyrics, particularly from this era, have all the originality of a paint-by-numbers Van Gogh (that’s a Mona Lisa Smile reference, in case you didn’t catch it).
The Spin article that further iterated this dives right into Madonna wielding Carey as an example of the rampant homogeneity that made (and makes) America the antithesis of a hospitable place for an artist. Not just to exist, but to even attempt experimentation that might be embraced rather than lambasted. So it is that she mentions, “I was talking to k.d. lang about it last night. I don’t want to get into slagging off other artists, but we were talking about her record versus someone like Mariah Carey’s—and I think she’s a very talented singer—but we have to realize that the same country that acquitted O.J. is the same country that makes a complete piece of shit movie number one, that buys Mariah Carey records. It’s this homogeneity. But it’s got nothing to do with art.”
The interviewer also asked later in the article, “Are there moments when you just say I wish I was Mariah Carey, just singing silly pop songs?” Madonna replied (apparently laughingly), “I’d kill myself.” So it was that Mariah was able to take aim at Madonna when questioned about these remarks while promoting her Daydream record.
At the Billboard Music Awards on December 4, 1996, Mariah was then asked by an Entertainment Tonight interviewer, “Madonna is here, did you congratulate her on her new baby?” Mariah smirks, “No. I didn’t see her.” The germinal version of “I don’t know her.” She then laughs at her own ability to so icily deliver a line, prompting the interviewer to join in with her. Although Mariah was honored with an award for “One Sweet Day” being the single to achieve the most weeks at number one in the chart’s history that same night, there can be no denying the tinge of jealousy that continued to be sparked for Madonna being lauded with an Artist Achievement Award, presented by Tony Bennett. What’s more, it was her first public appearance since the birth of her daughter, Lourdes, in October, which only added to the fanfare surrounding her standing ovation.
Though Mariah’s vocal talent can’t be denied, she’s never been as memorable for the showmanship of Madonna’s level, preferring to rely solely on the one-dimensional aspect of being a “studio artist” (then, in the 00s, being more renowned for her hot mess antics, dismissed in the book as a result of not getting enough proper sleep). And no, dressing in a Nutcracker ensemble around the holidays doesn’t really count as showmanship (granted, it does speak to why Madonna would probably kill herself if she was Mariah).
What’s more, at the time Madonna’s comments came out, Mariah was still in the throes of her Beauty and the Beast lockdown marriage with Tommy Mottola, the man largely attributed to making her a success in a way that Madonna was never accused of–for the crux of her image was that she created it herself without the “input” of record industry suits. The sting of Madonna for Mariah, as alluded to in The Meaning of Mariah Carey, could also stem from the fact that Seymour Stein saw something in Madonna that he didn’t see in Mariah, star quality-wise. So it is that Mariah makes another undercutting dig about her youth in comparison to Madonna’s, as well as Stein’s ostensible “lack of taste,” with the line, “Seymour Stein, founder of Sire Records and signer of Madonna, actually had an opportunity for that distinction [of discovering me], as he was one of the first to have my demo. Alas, he said, ‘She’s too young.’”
The only other mention of Madonna in the book shades her for her age–again–and lack of “real” vocal aptitude. So it is that Mariah notes of her early gigs in studios, “They liked my sound because I had that young girl quality that was popular at the time, largely because of Madonna’s success. But I was actually a young girl, and my vocals could get into that high pitch range naturally. I could emulate the popular Madonna studio technique, but with my voice alone.”
So no, there are no visions of love here. And you best believe if Madonna had written an autobiography (which she never would, as self-directed biopics are far more original), there would be no mention of Mariah at all–because Madonna is a much better practitioner of the phrase, “I don’t know her.” Or maybe her Kabbalist ways (serving her better than Mariah’s “Christian” ones, as frequently touched on throughout the book) have taught her better to adhere to the old adage, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
