Throwback Thursday: Mariah Carey – “Loverboy” (featuring Cameo)
This week marks 20 years since Mariah Carey released “Loverboy” as the lead single of the soundtrack to her ill-fated movie, Glitter. At this point, the background of this song is stuff of legend. MC began writing the song while she was signed to Columbia Records, which was owned by Sony Music Entertainment.
Sony Music was run by Tommy Mottola, the man who signed Mariah and to whom she was married until 1998. His attempts to sabotage her career after the divorce was an open secret; she was only allowed to release two singles each from her last two studio albums on the label — and all four singles would become No. 1 hits.
In an attempt to gain freedom and fair treatment, Mimi bought herself out of her Columbia deal and found a new home at Virgin Records. However, as mentioned earlier, she began writing some of the music for her next project while at Columbia, and had even began the process of clearing samples. This means her bitter ex-husband knew what songs she was sampling and might have even heard some of the finished songs.
Enter Jennifer Lopez.
J.Lo was signed to Epic Records — a sister label to Columbia — by Tommy Mottola. In trying to build her career, Mottola saw a perfect opportunity to sabotage his ex-wife’s next project. He knew that the planned lead single sampled a song called “Firecracker” by Yellow Magic Orchestra, so he suggested that J.Lo used the sample on her project. It’s unclear how much insight J.Lo had into what was going on, but the sample ends up being used for “I’m Real,” the third single from her second album, J.Lo. The album was released eight months before the Glitter soundtrack, so Mariah had to shelve the initial version of the song (which finally saw the light of day last year).
“Loverboy” was re-recorded and re-arranged, and this time, it was sung over a Cameo sample. It’s not clear how much of this was planned by Mottola, but both “Loverboy” and “I’m Real” were serviced to radio on the exact same day (June 19, 2001). What was planned, however, was one last musical heist. The “I’m Real” remix featured Ja Rule and had similarities to a track he had made with Mariah for Glitter, and this was no coincidence. Irv Gotti, founder of Murder Inc. and close associate of Ja, has confirmed the ploy in at least two interviews, including a 2017 appearance on Desus & Mero. In case you were wondering, this is why Mariah doesn’t know J.Lo.
(Sidebar: All of this thievery is referenced by Da Brat in the “Loverboy” remix, which also features Ludacris, Shawnna and Twenty II. The line in question is rapped in the melody of “Firecracker.”)
“Loverboy” was received poorly by both critics and music fans, and the relentless onslaught from the media didn’t help matters. A little over a month after its release, Mariah would end up checking into a health facility for what was described as a physical and emotional breakdown at the time — nearly 17 years later, we end up finding out that she was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder.
“Loverboy” was Mariah’s first lead single to miss the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 2. The song would go on to become the best-selling single of 2001, with over 570,000 copies sold in the States.
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