It wasn't meant to be a tribute, but Mariah Carey's recording of "Without You" turns out to be an ironic reminder of the artistry of Harry Nilsson, the man who had a No. 1 hit with the song 22 years ago. Carey's remake debuts on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart next week at No. 53, just a week after Nilsson died of a heart attack at age 52. It's the first-ever remake of one of Nilsson's 10 chart entries to return to the Hot 100. It was also Nilsson's biggest hit, spending four weeks at the top of the chart. While he wrote most of his own hits, like "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City" and "Me and My Arrow," Nilsson also covered other writers' tunes, like Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'" and Pete Ham and Tom Evans' "Without You."[1]

 

Harry Nilsson would turn in his grave if he heard this insipid rendition of his standard. Bereft of any feeling and lacking the vocal dynamic's of Nilsson's original[2], smart marketing will none the less heighten the assumption that Carey is one of the world's greatest songstresses. The tragedy is that after relentless exposure on commercial radio - as is almost guaranteed - more people will associate this song with Carey than with the person who really made it famous.[3]

 

Mariah Carey (;: 0:01  born March 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. An influential figure in music, she is known for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, and signature use of the whistle register. Referred to as the "Songbird Supreme" by Guinness World Records, she was ranked as the fifth greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023. Carey rose to fame in 1990 with her self-titled debut album and became the only artist to have their first five singles reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. She achieved an international success with the best-selling albums Music Box (1993) and Daydream (1995), before adopting a new urban image with hip hop-inflected sounds, following the release of Butterfly (1997). With eleven consecutive years of US number-one singles, Billboard ranked Carey as the most successful artist of the decade. Following a career decline and the failure of her 2001 film Glitter, she returned to the top of the charts with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century. Carey's public and personal life, including her diva persona, high-profile relationships and public breakdown in 2001, has received widespread media coverage. She has also been dubbed the "Queen of Christmas" due to the enduring popularity of her holiday music, particularly Merry Christmas (1994), the best-selling holiday album, and its single "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which is the best selling holiday single by a female artist of all time. Outside of music, she has acted in major roles in the films Tennessee (2008), Precious (2009), The Butler (2013), A Christmas Melody (2015), and The Lego Batman Movie (2017). Appearing on multiple television series, Carey served as an American Idol judge and starred in the docu-series Mariah's World. She published a memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, in 2020. Carey is one of the best-selling music artists, with over 220 million records sold worldwide. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, and The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. Her accolades include 5 Grammy Awards, 10 American Music Awards, 19 World Music Awards and 20 Billboard Music Awards. Carey's high-charting singles include "One Sweet Day" and "We Belong Together" – Billboard's most successful songs of the 1990s and 2000s, respectively. She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist (19), a female songwriter (18), and a female producer (15), spending a record 93 weeks atop the chart. Carey is the highest-certified female artist in the United States and 10th overall, with 75 million certified album units.

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