Emotions is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey. Columbia Records released it on September 17, 1991. Emotions is a synthesized R&B and dance-pop album featuring piano, keyboards, and electric guitar, with influences from soul, jazz, gospel, and disco music. Ranging from upbeat dance tracks to slow, sentimental ballads, the songs explore love and heartbreak and, to a lesser extent, perseverance and grief.
Carey began work on Emotions in 1990 and wrote the lyrics to every track. She had greater control over the creative process compared to her debut studio album, Mariah Carey (1990), where seven out of eleven songs were co-composed with Ben Margulies. With Emotions, she was able to work with a larger variety of artists; she principally composed the ballads with Walter Afanasieff—with whom she had worked on Mariah Carey—and the dance tracks with David Cole and Robert Clivillés, who formed the production duo C+C Music Factory. Carey composed one song, "If It's Over", with Carole King.
Carey promoted Emotions through appearances on television and at award shows, though it did not receive as much marketing as Mariah Carey. Three singles supported the album. The lead single, "Emotions", topped the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart for three weeks, making Carey the first artist whose first five singles reached number one. The subsequent singles "Can't Let Go" and "Make It Happen" broke the streak, respectively peaking at numbers two and five. The album reached the top ten of charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Music critics were ambivalent towards Emotions on release. Some reviewers praised its production and Carey's vocals; others deemed her songwriting dull and felt she was overusing her whistle register. Retrospective reviews of Emotions have been more positive. At the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, the album earned Carey two nominations: Producer of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Emotions". The album has been certified platinum or higher across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia–Pacific region; it has sold over eightmillion copies worldwide.
Background
In 1988, Mariah Carey went to a recording industry gala where Tommy Mottola, the head of Columbia Records at the time, was in attendance. There, she handed him her demo tape, which he listened to on the drive home. Impressed by the music, Mottola returned to the party searching for Carey, only to learn she had already gone. After days of looking for her, he officially signed her to Columbia Records.
After signing to Columbia, Carey released her debut studio album, Mariah Carey, in 1990. Her vocals received widespread praise, but some critics felt the album lacked a distinct musical identity. The album topped the US Billboard 200 for eleven consecutive weeks and has sold over 15million copies worldwide as of 2017. Its four singles eligible for the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart—"Vision of Love", "Love Takes Time", "Someday", and "I Don't Wanna Cry"—made Carey the second act to top the chart with her first four releases. She also earned five nominations at the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards and won Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Vision of Love".
By 1991, Carey had become a prominent figure in the music industry. Following the success of her debut album, fans speculated about a possible world tour. She was hesitant, believing the vocally demanding nature of her songs would prevent her from delivering a good performance. Instead, she chose to focus on creating her next album.
Writing and recording
Carey began writing Emotions, her second studio album, after releasing "Vision of Love". Recording started after she finished the previous album. For Emotions, executives at Columbia granted her greater control over the creative process, compared to Mariah Carey where she had little sway. In between albums, she had a falling-out with collaborator Ben Margulies, with whom she composed seven of the eleven tracks on Mariah Carey. The conflict arose reportedly due to a contract she had signed with Margulies before joining Columbia. Their agreement entitled him to nearly half of the income Carey earned from Mariah Carey as a recording artist, rather than merely a share of the publishing royalties from the songs they had co-written. Due to the end of Margulies and Carey's work relationship, Carey was to recruit new songwriters and musicians for Emotions. President Don Ienner believed that she earned this artistic control, saying that she had a good sense of "what's right and wrong" when creating an album.
Carey continued to work with Walter Afanasieff, who produced "Love Takes Time" for Mariah Carey, because she felt serene and creative in his presence. They began writing for Emotions in late 1990, months before recording had begun. Their writing process usually involved Afanasieff first developing an idea, which he played on the keyboard as either a chord progression or a short instrumental line. This would inspire Carey to create vocal melodies or lyrics, and Afanasieff would play instruments along to what she was singing. These sessions took place during Afanasieff's free time, as he had also been working as a producer on Michael Bolton's Time, Love & Tenderness (1991). For Emotions, he would co-produce "And You Don't Remember", "Can't Let Go", "So Blessed", "Till the End of Time", "If It's Over", and "The Wind", and co-compose all but the latter two. "The Wind", the only track on the album not composed by Carey, was originally a jazz instrumental composed by pianist Russ Freeman in the 1950s. Afanasieff discovered it on a record by pianist Keith Jarrett, and Carey was inspired to create a song out of it.
Mottola suggested enlisting Robert Clivillés and David Cole of the dance music production duo C+C Music Factory, since combining slow ballads with uptempo dance tracks on albums proved successful in contemporary music at the time. They arrived at writing sessions with a collection of grooves, playing them for Carey to determine which could work as the base for songs. One decision Clivillés and Cole made early on was not to focus overly on Carey's upper vocal range. They acknowledged it would be difficult to ignore it completely, but wanted to focus on her vocal ability without risking criticism that her range was merely a gimmick. Their collaborations produced four songs: "Emotions", "Make It Happen", "You're So Cold", and "To Be Around You". Cole played the keyboards, and Clivillés handled the drums. All four songs were composed by Carey and Cole; Clivillés helped them compose "Emotions" and "Make It Happen".
Carey also worked with singer-songwriter Carole King for Emotions. Initially, King wanted Carey to record a rendition of Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" (1967), co-written by King and Gerry Goffin. Carey declined, feeling that Franklin's version was "untouchable" and that there was nothing new she could add to it. Instead, what arose from Carey and King's time in the studio was the sentimental ballad "If It's Over", which Carey described as a "true collaboration". The two exchanged musical ideas and Carey conceived lyrics until they formed what both deemed a "wonderful" song. By March 1991, Carey had an array of songs that she and Afanasieff played for the Columbia executives to decide which ones would be included on Emotions.
Composition Music and themes
Emotions is predominantly an R&B and dance-pop album that incorporates elements of soul, gospel, disco, and jazz. Carey wanted the album to draw heavily from Motown and gospel music, which her older sister and brother frequently played for her during her childhood. Compared to Mariah Carey, Emotions features a leaner production, eschewing the arrangements that some critics, and Carey herself, deemed overblown or overproduced. Most of the instrumentation on Emotions is synthesized; keyboards, drums, piano, and electric guitar feature prominently. It consists of two different styles of songs: slow, soulful ballads and upbeat dance tracks.
The songs on Emotions were made to be radio-friendly and commercially accessible. Love and romance are recurring themes; Carey explained that writing about love helps her connect with listeners and makes her emotions easier to convey, even if her inspiration stems from real-life experiences that are not always romantic. "Emotions", "To Be Around You", "So Blessed", and "Till the End of Time" explore the narrator's feelings of love and joy when she is with her partner. "And You Don't Remember", "Can't Let Go", "You're So Cold", and "If It's Over" portray Carey as a heartbroken lover or explore the deterioration of a romantic relationship. Emotions also contains two songs that depart from these themes and were inspired by Carey's real-life experiences: "The Wind" reflects on the grief of losing a loved one, and "Make It Happen" focuses on perseverance and faith in the face of adversity.
Carey's vocals on Emotions were influenced by those of Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Minnie Riperton, and Gladys Knight. When recording the album, she and her collaborators focused more on her voice than on production, in contrast to Mariah Carey; Dennis Hunt noted in the Los Angeles Times that Emotions relies more on conventional singing and less on vocal "showboating" than on her debut album. On songs like the title track, "Emotions", Carey sings in a high coloratura register and employs her whistle register extensively. She reaches a G7—her highest recorded note. Music critic Phyllis T. Garland wrote that no singer since Minnie Riperton had been able to reach such high notes. Carey uses her whistle register at times on "Can't Let Go" and "If It's Over", but sings primarily in a lower register on those songs.
Songs
The album opens with "Emotions", which has been described as a post-disco, R&B, and gospel song. Clivillés and Cole reworked the song into a house track for its club remix on the 12-inch vinyl single, incorporating an extended gospel-style introduction. "Emotions" describes the overwhelming feelings of love the narrator experiences when she is with her lover. Carey's vocal performance features melismatic runs and explores her lower register during the bridge before ascending into her whistle register. Near the end of the song, she performs a series of sustained whistle notes. "Emotions" was influenced by "Best of My Love", a 1977 single produced by Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire and performed by vocal group the Emotions, who also inspired the title of Carey's song.
"And You Don't Remember", the second track on Emotions, incorporates prominent gospel influences through its organ chord progression, minimal production, and soft church choir vocals. Biographer Chris Nickson stated that the song, along with "Emotions", was created to evoke the musical styles of the 1960s and 1970s. Lyrically, "And You Don't Remember" is a soulful sentimental ballad. It recounts the narrator's heartbreak after being deceived and abandoned by a former lover, who makes empty promises before moving on to another relationship. Influenced by 1950s balladry, third track "Can't Let Go" is an R&B and pop slow jam that features synthesizers and drum programming. It opens with faint notes from Carey in the whistle register, and she remains in a low vocal register with a breathy delivery before concluding with a whistle note at the end of the song. In the lyrics, the narrator laments the end of a relationship.