Mariah Carey's best songs: Ranking her No. 1 hits (original) (raw)

Written by: Kyle Anderson; Isabella Biedenharn; Leah Greenblatt; Chris Rackliffe; Jason Sheeler, Madison Vain, and Tyler Aquilina. A version of this story previously appeared in the May 15, 2015, issue of Entertainment Weekly under the headline "Celebrate Mariah Carey's birthday with the ultimate ranking of her No. 1 hits" and was last updated on Dec. 15, 2020.

Mariah Carey is marking yet another milestone in a life largely spent churning out No. 1s. At 20, Carey scored her first chart-topping hit when "Vision of Love," her debut single, dominated Billboard's Hot 100 in August 1990. In 2019 and 2020, Carey set records again with "All I Want for Christmas Is You" topping the charts years after its release. To celebrate, we're putting each infectious smash in our own (highly subjective) order.

1. "Fantasy" (1995, 8 weeks at No. 1)

"Fantasy" isn't just the platonic ideal of a Mariah Carey single — it's an all-around perfect song. Built on a squiggling sample borrowed from Tom Tom Club's 1981 hit "Genius of Love," the track (co-produced by Carey, Sean "Diddy" Combs, and Dave Hall) hit just hard enough to cement Carey's hip-hop bona fides but was still bubbly enough for suburban middle-school dances. Combs enlisted Wu-Tang Clan ringleader Ol' Dirty Bastard to add some New York City grit to the remix.

As a result, even listeners habitually allergic to rap music know that "Me and Mariah/Go back like babies with pacifiyahs" line by heart. And, of course, there's Carey's sugar-smacked vocal floating above it all, as fizzy, rich, and satisfying as an ice cream soda on a hot summer boardwalk.

2. "Always Be My Baby" (1996, 2 weeks)

She had us at the first "doo-doo-doo dow."

Add a few more taffy-sticky coos, and no, there's no way we would ever try to shake her — even if we didn't know yet that "always" really would last this long, as her third and final chart-topper off Daydream.

3. "Vision of Love" (1990, 4 weeks)

Carey didn't so much debut with her very first single as descend fully formed, like a Lycra-clad Venus on the half shell. Who had heard high notes like those outside of an opera house? When had we ever even been to the opera?

It didn't matter; by the time she hit that epic final vocal run, Our Lady of Infinite Melismata was consecrated.

4. "Emotions" (1991, 3 weeks)

As if to prove her first album wasn't a fluke, Carey went ahead and sang the hell out of the first single on her second full-length, too.

Sure, it's got one of the most cartoonishly nonspecific choruses ever written ("You've got me feeling emotions!"), but the way she double-jumps her own range into Virgin Galactic territory? Legendary.

5. "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (1994 release, 3 weeks in 2019; 12 weeks in total)

Carey's 1994 holiday bop is perhaps the closest thing Christmas has to an official anthem, as evinced by the way it reliably climbs the charts every year. Technicalities kept "All I Want" from appearing on the Hot 100 until 2012, and it took the song another seven years to hit No. 1 for the first time, 25 years after its debut.

Still, Carey's the one laughing now: it may well hit No. 1 annually for the next 25 years. After all, who can resist it once those sleigh bells kick in?

6. "Honey" (1997, 3 weeks)

Mimi made her declaration of independence with a staccato piano line, a classic rap sample, and an exhalation of nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nahs: "Honey" was the first single to follow her split from husband/Svengali Tommy Mottola.

The symbolism of the track's James Bond-ian video, which showcased Carey slipping out of handcuffs and speeding off on a Jet Ski, was not lost on listeners. Neither was its sinuous hook; the song became her third to debut at No. 1.

7. "Someday" (1991, 2 weeks)

Carey has always been the mistress of pretty pining, but she knew how to flip the script when her Mimi-ness went unappreciated.

In "Someday," which was her third No. 1 single, she lets an ex foolish enough to walk away know just what he'll be missing. You think you'll find better, boy? No such thing.

8. "One Sweet Day" (1995, 16 weeks)

Goosebumps, every time. Carey's heavenly vocals, combined with the song's universal message and the sweet harmonies of Boyz II Men, undoubtedly helped it become the longest-running No. 1 in Billboard chart history at the time, spending a staggering four straight months at the top and netting them a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year.

It took 21 years for a song to repeat that level of chart success: In August 2017, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito," featuring Justin Bieber, tied with "One Sweet Day."

9. "We Belong Together" (2005, 14 weeks)

While this later gem may lack the effortless octave-sweeping of her earlier hits, Carey's syncopated ode to destiny, her third Record of the Year nomination at the Grammys, is still one of her most enduring portraits of heartbreak and all its frustrations.

When love has left you, not even the airwaves are safe: "So I turn the dial/Trying to catch a break/And then I hear Babyface."

10. "Love Takes Time" (1990, 3 weeks)

With just the softest synthesizer tinkle, a touch of percussion, and what may well have been a borrowed pair of back-porch wind chimes, she made every last listener feel the utter despair of a breakup: "Losing my mind/From this hollow in my heart/Suddenly I'm so incomplete."

Cry, crawl toward the chardonnay bottle on the kitchen floor, repeat.

11. "Heartbreaker" (1999, 2 weeks)

It's hard to imagine a world where Jay-Z plays backup for anyone. But in Carey's lead single off 1999's Rainbow, Hova does just that and steals the song.

As Carey soars/sleepwalks through (by then) trademark Mimi leitmotifs of unavailable men, regret, codependency, and game-playin', Jay busts on in to pair "Jacuzzi" with "newbie."

12. "I Don't Wanna Cry" (1991, 2 weeks)

This weeper from her eponymous debut is a rallying — sorry, we can't help it — cry for the love-starved and lonely. If the title was a directive, well, mission not accomplished.

"I Don't Wanna Cry" was Carey's fourth and final single off her debut album to reach No. 1, making her only the second artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 with their first four songs, after the Jackson 5.

13. "Don't Forget About Us" (2005, 2 weeks)

The lilting chorus, those breathy harmonies, that mammoth note at the end just because she can — "Don't Forget" hits all of Carey's strengths in one fell swoop.

And don't forget about the sassy bridge, where Carey spills all the tea: "I bet she can't do it like me/She'll never be MC." The song proved to be the only song from The Emancipation of Mimi after "We Belong Together" to hit No. 1, though "Shake It Off" came close.

14. "Dreamlover" (1993, 8 weeks)

So fresh and summery and carefree that its video — one of the first ever directed by "Blurred Lines" and "We Can't Stop" helmer Diane Martel — was just the logical extension of the track's glorious, frolicking-in-cutoffs groove.

Vocally, "Dreamlover" was the moment Carey stopped trying so hard, and her newfound breeziness helped her graduate from superstar to unstoppable cosmic force. (In cutoffs.)

15. "My All" (1998, 1 week)

By 1997's Butterfly, the collection from which this let-the-candles-burn ballad comes, Carey's music had officially become a blend of hip-hop-inflected R&B and pop that couldn't be parsed for parts.

Though it could, apparently, be put through a slow-burn flamenco filter and zhuzhed up with some serious sensuality and Spanish guitar.

16. "I'll Be There" (1992, 2 weeks)

Believe it or not, Carey hadn't made many live appearances before taking the stage for MTV Unplugged; she thought of herself mostly as a studio artist and a producer.

But her raw, soulful deconstruction of key songs from her first two albums was a revelation, as was her cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There," a duet with Trey Lorenz. In recasting one of Michael Jackson's all-time greatest songs, she made it utterly her own.

17. "Hero" (1993, 4 weeks)

There's a timelessness to "Hero" that's almost jarring — it's such a classic chest-pounder that it's as if we've always had "Hero," and the imaginary movie scene to go with it (A brave astronaut blasts off to save the planet? A firefighter cradles a puppy rescued from a burning orphanage?).

That elusive quality will keep the song and sentiment in rotation forever — which probably makes Carey glad she didn't give this one away to its intended recipient, Gloria Estefan.

18. "Touch My Body" (2008, 2 weeks)

Five-octave range be damned: Only Carey could spend an entire song essentially sing-talking and still have the pluck to purr, "Come on and give me what I deserve."

Amid sporadic finger snaps and plinking piano keys, she implores her secret lover (memorably portrayed in the song's video by 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer) not to blab, or else: "I will hunt you down." "Touch My Body" was ultimately the only Hot 100 chart-topper from E=MC².

19. "Thank God I Found You" (2000, 1 week)

Carey's first No. 1 of the 21st century isn't by any means her best: It suffers from cluttered boy-band production, an indistinct chorus, and an insistence that we should take seriously anybody in 98 Degrees not named Lachey.

Those weak spots earn it last place on our list, but not necessarily in our hearts — which have always had room for even Mimi's ugliest platinum ducklings.