These days she's fodder for tabloids and late-night comics, but way back in the 1990s Mariah Carey reigned as one of the world's bestselling female performers. This two-CD Greatest Hits collection offers up chart-topping evidence why, for better or worse, Mariah's five-octave, pop/R&B styling set the diva standard. Culled from her five albums on Sony, (before signing to Virgin), and you get ...
Manufacturer: Columbia
Joni Mitchell would go on from this 1971 recording to make more popular, more ambitious and more challenging albums, but she's never made a better one. Working with minimal accompaniment (Stephen Stills and James Taylor are two of the four sidemen), the Canadian songbird summoned an involving song cycle of romance found and lost. Though Blue is an uncommonly intimate representation, it's ...
Manufacturer: Reprise
Carole King was famous as a writer of girl group hits in the 1960s. In 1971, she became more famous. That's the year Tapestry became one of the biggest selling LPs of all time. It's easy to hear why--the music is loose, earthy, L.A. session-pop. King is casual, intimate, and tough; she covers all the emotional ground of the post-liberated woman with ease. She brings adult nuance to "Will ...
Manufacturer: Legacy
New Age diva Enya first became widely known when her 1988 album Watermark sold 4 million copies and launched the single "Orinoco Flow". Her follow-up, Shepherd Moons, was even more successful, selling over 10 million copies despite its slightly lower grade of ethereal enchantment. In 1997 she released Paint the Sky with Stars, an assortment of her best work from these two ...
Manufacturer: Wea
Manufacturer: Universal / Island
M!ssundaztood is the follow-up to Pink's platinum selling debut. On Can't Take Me Home Pink established herself as one of the biggest R&B/pop acts of 2000; a status she later confirmed by stealing the limelight from fellow divas-with-attitude Missy Elliott, Mya and Christina Aguilera on their No. 1 cover of "Lady Marmalade". M!ssundaztood, however, reveals an ambition that ...
Manufacturer: Laface
Manufacturer: EMI
She's been hailed for her multi-octave vocal range--a tool that sometimes detracts from her pop recordings, but actually works quite beautifully in the context of this charming holiday collection. Fans will surely approve of Carey's renditions of slinky secular songs like "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)" and a nicely subdued "All I Want for Christmas Is You". But where she really surprises is ...
Manufacturer: Sony Budget
Dido's debut is moulded from Sarah McLachlan's intimate soul, Sinead O'Connor's Celtic yelp, and Beth Orton's morose resolve--with all the sharp edges rounded out. Sculpted by producers Rollo (her brother) and techno-scientist Youth, No Angel is dream-pop mixed with Portishead-esque trip-hop; the results are mid-tempo ballads that would feel at home in Seal's neighbourhood. The melancholy ...
Manufacturer: Arista
