Mariah Carey Breaks Down Her Most Iconic Billboard Hits | Chart History

Hi, I'm Mariah Carey, and this is my Billboard chart history. On some level, I do feel like We Belong Together is my signature song. There's like eras of different songs being my signature. Like, Hero, for a while, was the one that people associated with me the most. But I think more people know We Belong Together because it's just that kind of song. Usually, I plan it out. But that day, I was waiting for L.A. Reid to come to the studio, and he had some financial people with him. And he was like, OK, I'm here. I'm coming down to this room. I was like, can you just give me like five minutes? So I did the outro like really fast. Thankfully, it's not that all over the place or that complicated. So I was able to get it done. Yes, I do. All the time. I'm always like, why did I do that? Now, how am I going to do it again? I like Lead the Way. No, but I'm appreciative that they do. I'm really appreciative that they give me credit for that. Well, I wanted to work with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and I just love their style. And they just had Crossroads, which was a huge record. It worked out. We got it together. We got in the studio. Stevie J was there. It was a moment. It was like they were a moment, is all I can say. I don't mean to minimize them by saying that. I mean to making them bigger, if I even could. They were so great to work with, and I love Breakdown. You know, with Breakdown, it was something that I wanted to do. I was like, I really want to do something a la Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, because no female had really done that yet. I love the Honey music video. I wish I could live in it. I was in Puerto Rico, and I was on Little Island, Palo Monito Island, and I was watching people jet ski back and forth. And I thought, oh, that would be something I could do in the video. It was just on my mind. I was like, that visual looked so good. We decided to make it all like a James Bond kind of chase scene, and still one of my favorites. It's just a song. They get so dramatic. I really didn't think people were going to go there, but they did. I love Marilyn Monroe. I actually have her piano from when she was a little girl, and it was her mom's piano, and when they auctioned it, I made sure I got the piano. I was inspired in that video, and I still believe, to just kind of do an attempt at something that was inspired by her look. The hair over to the side, and kind of like that 1950s hair set that we did. I think it was Peter Savick that did the hair. I just always loved her, so that was the inspiration. And yes, with the army guys and everything, that was inspired by Marilyn. The jeans were a moment, yeah. I decided to cut the top off my jeans. I was with my stylist at the time, Tanya Twister, who later passed away. Rest in peace, Tanya. The jeans were too tight, and they were too high, so I just ripped off the top at the photo shoot the night before for Heartbreaker. We just wore them in the video, and then all of a sudden, people started doing it, and I was like, hello, this is my idea. I love Jay-Z, as does pretty much everybody. And when we were doing Heartbreaker, we had an idea to do a bunch of different skits, and Jay did Scarface, and I was dressed like Michelle Pfeiffer was. Jay was in the hot tub, which was amazing. Well, I love Jermaine. Jermaine Dupri is one of my favorite, favorite producers and people in the world. He's just so talented and has had so much success, and we really work well together, you know, from Always Be My Baby to We Belong Together, and we happen to do Sweetheart, which is not my favorite, favorite song that we've done together, but I like the video. That was actually Jermaine's album, Life in 1472, and then it just went on to my number one's record. That's JD. Well, the best thing about Touch My Body is the fact that Aretha Franklin did it. That is so iconic. I can't even know what to say. Seriously. In the studio, I was with The Dream. He and I wrote that song together. It's still one of my favorites. I just liked it. I just felt like it was a feel-good song, and it was something that people would hopefully like, and then it became my 18th number one, so that was amazing. It's so funny that that has this big resurgence. Obsessed. I'm like, I never... Not that I never thought. I actually thought it should have been a bigger record at the time that it came out, but it might have been a little ahead of its time. I love it now. We do it at the shows. It's one of my faves. Well, I needed to be specific because I had to address a situation, but it is what it is. It was always meant to be a Boyz II Men collaboration, and I was so thankful that they did the song with me because they're amazing. You know, it was the 90s, and it was that moment. And I became friends with particularly Wanye, and he's so much... He's hilarious. Yeah, we did the song together, and it did hold the record for a long time. I remember they came to the studio to listen to the song. They had one day, so we had to get the video and the song on the same day, and that's why it's like docu-style. We did a lot of layers and background vocals and stuff like that. When I first decided, okay, I'm making a Christmas album, the first thing I did was write a song because I wanted it to be, you know, have my own signature on it. That was the first song that I wrote for the entire album. I also wrote a song called Miss You Most at Christmas. It's obviously not all I want for Christmas is you. That just became such a thing that I never could have predicted it, ever. So now we have it. That's what I'm going to be doing when I get to my destination, my holiday destination. I'm going to be listening to Christmas music the entire time. Nobody's allowed to play anything other than Christmas music. My favorite Christmas song is Nat King Cole's A Christmas Song. It's my favorite. No, I never sang it because I love it so much. I didn't want to do my version. I wanted to leave that as it is. I love Here For It All. It was the first song that I wrote for this album. It's always been close to my heart. I don't know. It's one of those things. I actually played it for my friend Trey Lorenz when I first did it, and that's how long ago I did it. It was a while back. He kept reminding me of the song and he kept saying, like asking me about it and saying, like, where's the but when you leave that little part, you know, he really loved that. And I was like, where's that song? And I'm like, we're coming soon. Justice for Shake It Off. Yes, that was number two. Everybody just, everybody just bang.