EMI drops Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey has been paid $28m (£19m) by EMI Records to end her recording contract with the company. The pay-out, which ends her five-album deal, was announced in a statement to the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday. Mariah Carey was rebuilding her career after illness. This follows months of speculation and denials from Virgin, a US subsidiary of EMI, that the singer was being dropped following poor sales for her recent album "Glitter".
Carey has described the parting as the "right decision for me". She had signed with EMI just in April 2001, after she quit the Sony label, for an estimated £70m, one of the most expensive recording contracts in history.
"Glitter" sold just two million copies world-wide, compared with 20 million for her 1993 record Music Box. Carey had a troubled 2001 after suffering an emotional breakdown which led her to check into a clinic to recover. The singer was placed in psychiatric care in August after suffering from "extreme exhaustion".
In a statement Carey
said: "I look forward to the many new and exciting opportunities
which have now been presented to me."
Recently EMI were looking to cut costs. Last year, the group warned that full year profits could fall 20%, as the music industry was hit by falling CD sales and piracy. EMI has made two failed attempts to merge, first with Warner Music and then BMG.
No record companies have been mentioned as possible follow-up
for the singer, though.
Ominously for any hopes of a career as a film star, the first
role, in Glitter, was roundly panned by critics and reportedly
laughed at by her own fans during a preview screening.
The New York Times said she was "simply inadequate as an
actress" - but The Los Angeles Times gave her at least a
ray of hope, saying that she gave a "capable" performance.
Her second feature movie, "Wise Girls", in which she plays a waitress alongside Mira Sorvino, was recently given its world première at the Sundance Film Festival.
Mariah Carey, the daughter of a former opera singer, began
singing at the age of four.
She continued then to write songs while she was at school and
soon after graduation broke into the recording industry, making
her debut on Columbia Records in 1990.
She told People magazine: "If I was gun-shy I'd be home
hiding under the covers. I'm a fighter. I have been since I was
a kid." She dismissed suggestions she may get bad reviews
for Wise Girls and said she would be ignoring the critics' verdicts.
"You can always wrap fish in it," she said.
