I vote for Butterfly, which stings like a bee
TWENTY YEARS AGO Mariah Carey released her sixth studio album, Butterfly, and this mixed-race R’n’Bloving Essex gay boy lost his freekin’ mind. Such was my desire to possess this record that I placed a pre-order at Barkingside Our Price. Going to collect it, I took my Sony Discman for the ceremonial bus journey home so I could fully process all the ways my life was about to change.
Mariah didn’t disappoint. Opening with Honey, a dance anthem about sexual co-dependency, she sang about wanting to taste a lover’s spooge. This from a woman who two years before had been consigned to ballroom dresses and mawkish songs about heroes. Suddenly, here she was playing up to the narrative of being the princess held captive in music exec Tommy Mottola’s ivory tower. Shedding her marriage and the roll necks, Mariah’s transition occurred just as I was stuck in my own cocoon of suburban hell.