Why are Mariah’s vocals on ATYNAF C&C Club remix a little hoarse?
First of all, ATYNAF C&C Club remix is like one of my all time favorite pieces of music, and I think her vocals there are legendary. But they are significantly more raspy and hoarse than what she recorded on Music Box or Merry Christmas. Even the ATYNAF soul convention remix features much better vocals that sound very similar to the original record. I do think that Mariah does prioritize where she puts her effort- and perhaps she wanted to get that club remix done during a time that she was hoarse in 1994, and since it wasn’t going to get as much popularity she didn’t think it was necessary to perfect the vocals. MB and Merry Christmas were very polished albums, vocally and otherwise. If you listen to O holy Night acapella, you can hear how many different takes were spliced together to perfect all of those phrased upper belts and the whistle. That all took a lot of time, and frankly that probably wasn’t something she wanted to do on an 11 minute remix that is meant to be a little more fun. I’m thinking also of the TGIFY make it last remix- which had much hoarser vocals than on the main Rainbow tracks. I think part of it was that she was just in a worse vocal condition when she recorded it, but perhaps also she didn’t care as much to perfect the vocals. My other theory is that her voice became worse in 1994 in overall condition because she stopped taking vocal lessons and warming up due to Tommy’s insistence on her doing those things. Her vocal condition on the ATYNAF remix is just evidence of this decline, along with further inconsistencies in her live ATYNAF and without you performances. For the Merry Christmas album she probably earned herself up in the studio and redid takes to perfect the vocals. By late 1994 she had used her freedom in the studio to discover a more nasal and mixed placement, which allowed for more consistency in her Christmas performances. But also this theory is a bit out there and the first theory is probably more likely but I’m curious what everyone thinks.