Mariah Carey graces the Coast
|  | | Mariah Carey tweeted this picture before leaving for Australia | | She's the biggest artist to visit the Gold Coast since Whitney Houston shared the bill with Frank Sinatra for The Ultimate Event at the opening of Sanctuary Cove in 1988. Mariah Carey is an undisputable diva among divas - and not just because of her notorious penchant for the six-star life. (Interesting fact: She owns Marilyn Monroe's white piano.)
Like them or loathe them, Carey, Celine Dion and the late Houston are renowned as the world's top three divas because of their vocal powers. There's a very good reason Carey has remained at the top of the pack since she released her debut album 22 years ago. She has a five-octave vocal range - and isn't afraid to use her whistle register! (Interesting fact: The whistle register, also called the flageolet, is the highest register of the human voice, above the modal register and falsetto.)
Ranked second this year on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music list, Carey's voice earned her a place in the Guinness Book Of World Records and the title "songbird supreme" for the highest range of any recorded singer. Carey high note is G#7 - known as the dolphin squeak. The kind of note that can shatter glass.
It's notes like this that saw her signed to a record-breaking $100 million recording contract with Virgin Records in 2000.(Interesting fact: She was later bought out of the deal for $50 million.) She has clocked up total album sales of more than 200 million worldwide, a figure that keeps rising every Christmas when new legions of music lovers discover her 1994 Merry Christmas album and single All I Want for Christmas. (Interesting fact: She co-wrote and co-produced the hit track with Walter Afanasieff.)
In 1995, Carey made history when her duet with Boyz II Men, One Sweet Day, spent a record 16 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. The songs remains the longest-running No. 1 in US chart history. The proud owner of more No. 1 US singles than Elvis, Carey's tally of 18 is second only to The Beatles (who have 21) and light years ahead of "pop culture icon" Madonna.
She has five Grammy Awards, 17 World Music Awards, 11 American Music Awards and 31 Billboard Music Awards to her credit but unlike Whitney and Celine, Mariah is not only a singer and actress but a songwriter and record producer. Of course, if it looks like a diva, quacks like a diva and walks like a diva, it isn't necessarily a diva. But if it sings like Mariah, well... it's perhaps the world's greatest living diva.
Don't be fooled by the choice of venue for the first show of Mariah Carey's first Australian tour in 15 years. Carey, 42, is playing the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre because Jupiters has subsidised the show (just as Mike Gore did with Whitney and Frank at Sanctuary Cove). If they hadn't, she wouldn't be playing the Gold Coast at all. She's too big a diva, dahlings. (Gold Coast Bulletin News)
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