Unlike Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey’s Career Continues To Struggle [Opinion]

This decade hasn’t been an easy one for Mariah Carey, who is one of the most successful female artists in music history. After her late 2009 album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel flopped, Mariah had nowhere to go but up. However, Mariah had a chance to rebound with her stint on American Idol, the same show that revived Jennifer Lopez’s career.

As one may remember, Jennifer Lopez fell out of favor with the general public after major music and film success in the early 2000s. However, when Lopez became an American Idol judge in 2011, things turned around as she was able to show the public why they loved her in the first place — she was down to earth, sassy, and smart.

Mariah Carey could have taken the same route when she became a judge in 2013. However, as TMZ reported, Mariah engaged in fights with Nicki Minaj, which some say was a publicity stunt for ratings. However, it was very obvious Mariah was unhappy, and she helped bring down the ratings for the show. A couple years later, USA Today reported that Mariah called American Idol the worst experience of her life. She talked about the feud between her and Nicki.

“I’m not going to get into what it was, but let’s just say I don’t think they had any intentions for us to have a good experience doing that show. Pitting two females against each other wasn’t cool. It should have been about the contestants instead of about some nonexistent feud that turned into even more ridiculousness. I would never want to be involved with it again.”

Then, Mariah Carey tried to revive her music career to minimal success. She released several singles that bombed until the duet “#Beautiful” with Miguel was released. The song became a minor hit, but Mariah still delayed her album. When Me. I Am Mariah: The Elusive Chanteuse was finally released in 2014, sales were far less than expected. Billboard described why it was such a disappointment.

“Not only was Carey’s new record her lowest-charting non-holiday album of the SoundScan era, but its year-to-date total is less than what Memoirs sold its first week out. Furthermore, Elusive Chanteuse basically sold half of its YTD total in its first week, which strongly suggests the only people interested in a new Mariah album are the die-hard fans.”

Mariah could have revived herself, but soon found herself in several live performance disasters. One occurred during the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at the end of 2015. According to E! News, Carey apologized and said things were beyond her control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-wmSYSIX6U

If that ceremony was a storm in Carey’s career, then her New Year’s Eve performance on ABC was a hurricane. Carey was caught trying to lip-synch and failing miserably. It’s obvious her ear piece didn’t work, but the real backlash was caused due to what many considered Mariah’s unprofessional response, even going so far as to blame Dick Clark Productions for purposely trying to sabotage her.

This fiasco resulted in some unfortunate results for Carey. Page Six reported that Mariah’s current tour with Lionel Ritchie has been tanking at the box office. Some accuse Page Six of being inaccurate at times, but they correctly note that Ticketmaster has been offering a “buy one, get one free” promotion for the tour, which kicks off in March. To add to the damage, Carey’s new single “I Don’t” with Rapper RG is also a flop. The song, released last week, has completely fallen off iTunes.

It may be too soon to completely write off Mariah Carey. People love a comeback story, and Mariah provided one of music’s biggest comebacks ever in 2005 when she released The Emancipation of MiMi. Let’s hope, for the sake of Mariah and her fans, that history repeats itself.

[Featured Image by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images]