Butterfly is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey, released on September 10, 1997, by Columbia Records. The album continued the transition that began with her previous album, Daydream (1995), which pushed her further into the R&B and hip hop market and away from the pop background of her previous work.
Throughout the project, Carey worked with Walter Afanasieff, with whom she had written and produced most of the material from her previous albums. She also worked with many famed hip-hop producers and rappers, such as Sean "Puffy" Combs, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott and the Trackmasters. The album contains both hip-hop and urban adult contemporary sounds, as well as some softer and more contemporary melodies. With the latter acts producing most of the album, Butterfly deviated from the adult contemporary sound of Carey's previous albums. Carey was able to reflect her creative maturity and evolution in the album's writing and recording.
Five singles were released from the album; two worldwide commercial singles and three limited-release singles. "Honey", the album's lead single, topped the charts in Canada and the United States, and reached the top five in New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. The album's fifth and final single, "My All", became a top-ten hit throughout Europe and topped the charts in the United States. To promote the album, Carey embarked on the Butterfly World Tour, which visited Australia, Japan and Taiwan, with one show in the United States. Butterfly was nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards.
Butterfly received widespread critical acclaim from music critics, many of whom embraced Carey's musical transition. Reviewers complimented the album for its mature sound and production, as well as her musical direction. Retrospectively, it has been hailed as an R&B classic and is regarded as Carey's magnum opus. Though released during Carey's heavily publicized conflict with Sony Music, the album became an international commercial success, topping the albums charts in many countries, including Australia, Canada, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, as well as the United States. It was certified five-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States and received the Million Award in Japan. Globally, Butterfly has sold over ten million copies.
Background and release
Carey began working on Butterfly in November 1996. During the album's development in mid-1997 Carey separated from her husband, music executive Tommy Mottola, who had guided her career since 1990. Carey's increasing control over her own career had led to speculation in the press over the future of the couple, and they later divorced. Throughout the development of the album, in a departure from her previous style, Carey worked with various rappers and hip hop producers, including Sean "Puffy" Combs, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott and Jean Claude Oliver and Samuel Barnes from Trackmasters. Critics saw Carey's new production team as a form of revenge on Mottola and Sony Music. Carey denied taking a radically new direction, and insisted that the musical style of her new album was of her own choosing. Nevertheless, Carey resented the control that Sony, whose president was Mottola, exercised over her music, preventing her from making music about which she was passionate. In contrast, Sony was concerned Carey, their best-selling act, could jeopardize her future success through her actions.
The pressure of the separation and constant press attention began to take its toll on Carey. Growing creative differences with producer Walter Afanasieff ended their working relationship, after collaborating on most of Carey's previous output. The breaking point came after a heated argument during a long recording session, over the album's musical direction. Carey also faced media criticism over her choice of producers and several newspapers linked Carey romantically to several rappers, suggesting these relationships influenced her decisions. However, Carey denied the allegations, stating she had only slept with her husband.
Butterfly was first issued on September 10, 1997, in Taiwan, Germany, France, and Japan. Releases followed on September 11 in the United Kingdom; September 12 in Australia, New Zealand, and the rest of Asia and Europe; and September 16 in the Americas. It was issued as an LP, cassette, compact disc, and/or MiniDisc depending on the country. In the United States, Columbia also issued a cassette/CD package set, the first such configuration by a record label.
Writing and composition
Butterfly was described as an R&B, pop and hip hop music album with hip hop soul elements. With a variety of writers and producers and its new musical direction for Carey, the album was always likely to be a commercial success. Carey and Combs wrote the lead single, "Honey". Combs believed this to be a good song but was uncertain how successful it would be as a release owing to its heavy hip hop influence. The remix for "Honey" featured rapping lead vocals from Da Brat, The LOX and Mase, and some verses were rapped by Combs himself. The track was very different from Carey's previous recordings, and was described by author Chris Nickson as "street Hip-Hop music, with a booming bass." The song's melody was driven by Q-Tip's drum programming and Stevie J's keyboard notes. Combs's production gave the song a "light and airy" effect, further distancing it from Carey's contemporary sound. "Honey" featured musical samples from Treacherous Three's "The Body Rock", and "Hey DJ" by The World's Famous Supreme Team. The track used both hip hop and R&B with traces of pop music and was described as a "[song with a] catchy chorus, combining hip hop and pop into something that simply wasn't going to be denied by anyone, and offering a powerful start to a record."
The album's second single, "Butterfly", was one of the ballads Carey wrote with Afanasieff. Carey described the song as the "favorite ballad she had ever written", one that was more personal than her previous work as the emotions conveyed through the song allude at just how meaningful the lyrics are to her. Carey solely wrote the lyrics while Afanasieff, who composed the music with Dan Shea, handled the song's instrumentals, and added a few personal R&B touches. Another ballad Carey wrote with Afanasieff was "My All", written as a contrast to the album's general hip hop flavor. Carey described the song as having "a lush sound and intense styling". It featured guitar arpeggios, which were synthetically created using sampling and keyboard notes. "The Roof", Butterflys European single, incorporated fragments from Mobb Deep's "Shook Ones (Part II)", and was produced by Carey, Poke & Tone and Cory Rooney.
"Fourth of July", one of the album's slower ballads, was also written solely by Carey and Afanasieff but was not released as a single. The song was perceived to have jazz influences and was compared to some of Carey's older work such as "Vanishing" and "The Wind". The next two tracks on the record, "Breakdown" and "Babydoll", were described as "the album's backbone, its real declaration of independence" by Nickson. "Breakdown" was written by Carey and Puffy and included rap verses from Wish and Krayzie Bone from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Author Chris Nickson wrote that "'Breakdown' showed Mariah treading forcefully into territory that was new for her and making it her own." For "Babydoll", Carey teamed up with Elliott. The track was recorded in Atlanta, where Elliott resided, and included background vocals from Carey's long-time friend, Trey Lorenz. "Babydoll" is an R&B ballad with trip hop and drum and bass influences, and was described as "a vocally driven piece", with strong jazz harmony provided by Cory Rooney. Other songs that incorporated R&B influence into ballads were "Whenever You Call" and "Close My Eyes", which were personally important to Carey due to their lyrical content. While both were similar ballads to Carey's previous work, Nickson said: While up to the standard of anything Mariah had ever done before, [they] suffered in comparison. But even here you could hear the new Mariah in the spareness of the arrangements and the way it was her voice, rather than any instrument, that controlled the song. She'd grown to the point where having less behind her really proved to be more, for the song and for her. It was notable, too, that like the other ballads on the record, these two leaned very much towards R&B.
Carey wrote the song "Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise)" with famed house music producer David Morales. When imagining the concept for "Butterfly", Carey intended the song to be a house music record, but after writing it, made it into a ballad. Carey expressed a desire to feature her concept both on the house record, in addition to the ballad that would become "Butterfly". Morales took Carey's lyrics, concept and melody and added a house beat to it. For the album, Carey recorded a version of Prince's "The Beautiful Ones", featuring Dru Hill, with Dru Hill lead singer Sisqó sharing much of the lead with her. The song was one of the last recorded tracks and was the only non-original song on Butterfly. The final song on the album was "Outside", a ballad that was written by Carey, Afanasieff and Rooney, about Carey's experience being biracial. Richard Harrington from The Washington Post described the album's subtle inclusion of both pop and R&B genres: There are two Mariah Careys on Butterfly. One is the pop-oriented, ballad-leaning traditionalist who works very effectively with her longtime professional partner, composer-producer Walter Afanasieff. The other is a self-styled hip-hop fanatic who worked with Ol' Dirty Bastard on her last album and teams up here with several of that genre's movers and shakers, most notably Sean "Puffy" Combs, the godfather of hip-hop soul and the hottest producer in pop music today.
Promotion
To promote Butterfly, Carey made many live appearances. On September 12, 1997, Carey was interviewed about her split from Mottola and sang a live rendition of "Butterfly" and "Hero" on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Carey also featured as a musical guest on November 15, 1997, on Saturday Night Live, performing "Butterfly" again, as well as the Spanish-inspired "My All". She made two appearances on The Rosie O'Donnell Show; she performed "My All" and on her return visit, sang "Close My Eyes" live for the first time. Carey also gave performances at awards shows, singing "My All" at the 1998 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards and "Honey" at the 1998 World Music Awards. In Europe, Carey made several promotional television appearances. In the United Kingdom, Carey performed "My All" and "Honey" on the Des O'Connor Show and Top of the Pops. In Germany, she sang "Butterfly" on Wetten, dass..? and performed on Japanese television.
Originally, Carey had not planned to tour, after receiving mixed reviews in the US for her Music Box Tour. However, after the album's release, many fans requested Carey to tour, especially in Asia and Australia. Therefore, Carey embarked on the Butterfly World Tour; her third head-lining tour and most extensive to date. The tour included eleven shows, four in Japan's largest stadium, Tokyo Dome, one in Taiwan, five in Australia and one in the United States. As part of her performance at the 50,000-capacity Aloha Stadium in Hawaii, Carey filmed a concert video, Around the World. The video was a compilation DVD which included parts of Carey's shows in Japan, Australia and Hawaii. The tour was a critical and commercial success. Both fans and critics praised the quality of the show and Carey's vocals.
Singles