Mariah Carey was supposed to be the Princess of Pop, but somewhere along the way, she became the songbird in the gilded cage. And then she flew away.

Perception and reality can be funny things in the music business. For many years the majority of music fans have seen Mariah Carey as the epitome of conservative, white-bread American Pop. Her biggest hits were either sanitized dance-pop or big overblown ballads. The records sold millions, Mariah lived a fairytale existence (even marrying Tommy Mottola, the 40-something boss of her company). They built an enormous house. It all seemed perfect.

The reality was different. Mariah Carey was, in fact, a poor kid from a broken, multi-racial family who struggled for years at the bottom rungs of the music business before she finally attracted the attention of a record company. For her first four albums, Carey seemed content to be the safe, predictable pop diva that the marketing people wanted us to see; the albums were certainly selling tens of millions, and the singer was being recognized as one of the greatest talents of her generation. But starting with the released of her 1995 album Daydream, Slowly began forcing more and more of her own musical personality into her albums, exploring the r&b and hip hop that she'd grown up with.

It was all part of a personal rebellion that culminated in her public split from Mottola earlier this year. And now comes a new album, Butterfly, that reveals Mariah spreading her wings. You only have to listen to the album's first single, Honey, to know that changes are afoot. "I know I have this image, this unreachable Cinderella, but that's just something that someone made up, and it's kinda stuck for a while," says Mariah today.

"I mean that isn't my upbringing. I went through a lot and saw a lot of things, my life was far from sheltered or privileged, so when I worked with urban acts, people who have come up from the streets, and worked hard to get to where they are, I feel as if we have a lot in commonwe have a lot in common. It was never part of my personality to be this remote princess. I'd rather be with people with my age doing the kind of music that I like to listen to."

"I grow up in New York, I've been listening to urban music, hip hop, since it was invented – so it's not like I suddenly changed or decided that I'd like to do this kind of music overnight. The problem was the label got used to the particular thing that worked for me commercially, and there's always going to be some pressure to keep doing that because it works. What people need to realized is that the audience is capable of dealing with change." That's a bout as close as Mariah Carey ever gets to discussing the break up of her marriage and her creative rebirth; she is, after all, well-trained in the art of not giving too much away. But she is proud of the creative contribution she has made to her last two albums, and she says she is itching her musical muscle.

"There are so many things about this album that are really personal and I've lived with this album more than almost anything else I've ever done," she says. "So much of me has gone into making this album that I almost can't believe it's going to come out." Working with the high profile collaborators like Sean ‘Puffy' Combs (aka Puff Daddy), David Morales, and Jermaine Dupri, Carey has fashioned a brace of up-tempo dance tunes that tread the line between hip hop credibility and pop sheen. And because she's never be so stupid as to cut the rug from under her traditional fanbase, she has also included a number of ballads written with her long time songwriting partner, Walter Afanasief. The result is an album that makes considerable musical progress whilst still maintaining a strong commercial appeal.

And this time, she promises, an Australian tour will happen. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she laughs. "We'll do all the songs that have been popular over the years – from Vision of Love right to the present. I'm very conscious of the fact that Australia has never seen me live, so I'm putting together a show that will disappoint no-one."


Many thanks to Kerry from MariahCareyCollection for the scans.