Mariah Carey: Daydream Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This remastered Columbia / Legacy LP brings back the album that topped the charts in ten countries and spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It's certified 11 times platinum in the US and has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.

This edition

Remastered

About the album

"Fantasy" opens with a sample of Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love," and that one choice tells you where Daydream is headed. After the ballads of Music Box, Carey leaned into R&B and hip-hop, co-writing and co-producing with Walter Afanasieff, Jermaine Dupri, Dave Hall, Manuel Seal and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, and setting up the full turn she'd make on Butterfly.

Three singles went to No. 1 on the Hot 100. "Fantasy" became the first song by a woman to debut at the top, "One Sweet Day" with Boyz II Men stayed there for sixteen weeks, a record that stood for 23 years, and "Always Be My Baby" is breezy perfection. "Underneath the Stars" glows with 70s soul, "Melt Away" is a slow jam co-written with Babyface, and "Open Arms" is a gorgeous take on the Journey ballad.

It earned six Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year, and critics now hear it as the hinge between 90s pop and the R&B collaborations that followed. It also taught a generation of karaoke singers exactly where their upper register ends, and we say that with love.

Also at Kops: more Mariah Carey on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B