Mariah Carey Albums Discography

The albums discography of American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey consists of ten studio albums, two holiday albums, one soundtrack album, one live album, four compilation albums, one extended play and one remix album. In 1988 Carey began recording music for her self-titled debut album, which was released in June 1990. The album was certified nine-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of over nine million copies in the United States. Additionally, the album spawned four consecutive US number-one singles. In September 1991, Carey released her second album, Emotions. The album was a commercial success, selling over eight million copies worldwide. While successful, the album failed to match the sales of its predecessor, which in the US, shipped more than double the amount. By 1993, Carey released her most successful studio album, Music Box to date, which was certified Diamond in the United States and topped the charts in many countries around the world. Music Box was one of the best-selling albums of 1994 in Asia and remains one of the best-selling albums of all time, with sales of over 32 million copies.

In 1994 Carey released her first holiday album Merry Christmas, which has become the best-selling Christmas album of all time, and has produced the worldwide classic "All I Want for Christmas Is You". By 1995, Carey released her fourth studio album, Daydream, which became her most successful album in the United States, being certified Diamond by the RIAA, with worldwide sales of over 25 million copies. Carey's fifth studio album Butterfly, was released in 1997. The album introduced a new musical direction and style, as well as the video for "Honey" portraying Carey in revealing clothing for the first time in her career. Butterfly and Carey's next release #1's (Carey's first compilation album) were both certified five-times Platinum in the US; the latter album remains the best-selling album in Japan by a non-Asian artist, selling over 3,250,000 copies. In 1998, Carey received the World Music Award for the "World's Best Selling Recording Artist of the 1990's" as well as the award for "World's Best Selling R&B Artist." Rainbow, Carey's sixth studio effort, was released in 1999. The album became her first album since Emotions to not reach number one in the US. Rainbow was certified three-times platinum by the RIAA. In 2001 Carey parted from Columbia/Sony Music and signed a contract with EMI's Virgin Records worth a reported US$100 million, the largest record contract ever signed, and released her next album Glitter, which was the soundtrack album to the film of the same name. The album suffered from poor publicity and thus became a commercial failure compared to her previous efforts, receiving only Platinum status in the United States and becoming her second lowest selling album to date.

Carey signed a new deal in 2002 with Island Records and released her seventh studio album Charmbracelet. The album's sales were an improvement over Glitter, however, still falling short of Carey's earlier success. Carey took a three year break after Charmbracelet to record new material and introduced a hip-hop flavored album entitled The Emancipation of Mimi, which became the best-selling album of 2005 in the United States, and was a worldwide success, being certified six-times Platinum by the RIAA and selling over twelve million copies worldwide. The Emancipation of Mimi produced "the biggest song of the decade in the US," "We Belong Together", which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for fourteen weeks, and reached the top five in many worldwide markets. It is also considered Carey's comeback album. In 2008, Carey released her ninth studio album E=MC², which was certified Platinum by the RIAA, and has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide. It produced the chart-topping single "Touch My Body" which broke her tie with Elvis Presley for the most number one singles on the Hot 100. Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, Carey's most recent release, became her least commercially successful album in her career, being certified Gold in the United States. According to Carey's label, Island/Def Jam, the album is a worldwide multi-million seller. Her most recent album is her second holiday album Merry Christmas II You, which received a Gold certification in the United States.

At the 2000 World Music Awards, Carey was presented with the Millennium Award for becoming the best-selling female artist of the millennium. She was also the recipient of the Chopard Diamond Award at the 2003 World Music Awards, recognizing sales of over 100 million albums worldwide. According to the RIAA, she is the third best-selling female artist and sixteenth overall recording artist with shipments of over 63 million albums in the US. She is also ranked as the best-selling female artist of the US Nielsen SoundScan era (third best-selling artist overall) with album sales of 52,600,000. After Carey's success in Asia with Merry Christmas, Billboard estimated Carey as the all time best-selling international artist in Japan. Carey is one of the best-selling music artists of all-time, with sales of over 200 million albums, singles and videos worldwide.