Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She rose to prominence after the release of the first single taken from her eponymous debut album in 1990, "Vision of Love". More than two decades later, Rolling Stone defined the song as an influence on "virtually every other female R&B singer since the nineties". Mariah Carey produced four chart-topping singles in the US and began what would become a string of commercially successful albums which solidified the singer as Columbia's highest selling act. Carey and Boyz II Men spent a record sixteen weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 with "One Sweet Day", which remains the longest-running number-one song in US chart history. Following a contemptuous divorce from Sony Music head Tommy Mottola, Carey adopted a new image and traversed towards R&B with the release of Butterfly (1997). In 1998, she was honored as the world's best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the World Music Awards and subsequently named the best-selling female artist of the millennium in 2000.

Whitney Houston

Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. Houston is one of pop music's best-selling music artists of all-time, with an estimated 170–200 million records sold worldwide. She released seven studio albums and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for "How Will I Know", influenced several African American women artists who follow in her footsteps.

Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only woman to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards (formerly "Top Pop Albums") on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a woman in history.Rolling Stone named it the best album of 1986, and ranked it at number 254 on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a woman to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

So Emotional

"So Emotional" is a song written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, and recorded by American singer Whitney Houston. The song was the third single from her second album Whitney, and was released in October 1987.

Commercially, it peaked at number five in the UK and number one in the Billboard Hot 100, where it became her sixth consecutive number one, and a dance chart hit. It would go and finish as the sixth best selling song of the year and the fourth most played in clubs; it is her sixth biggest hit on the Hot 100 chart.

Composition

"So Emotional" was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, who also penned Madonna's "Like a Virgin," Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors," Heart's "Alone," and The Bangles "Eternal Flame," all of which reached #1 on the charts. The song centers on Houston loving being in love, singing, "I get so emotional baby / Every time I think of you / I get so emotional baby / Ain't it shocking what love can do."

Critical reception

Allmusic editor Ron Wynn highlighted this track. Vince Aletti of Rolling Stone wrote: "Walden covers all these bases, out-hopping Kashif (but not Jellybean) with "So Emotional." St. Petersburg Times Eric Snider and Annelise Wamsley wrote: "`So Emotional,`` the record's token rock offering, is hollow and contrived, as if the trumped-up power guitars are supposed to give the song some guts."

Christina Aguilera

Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. In the early 1990s, she appeared on television series Star Search and The Mickey Mouse Club. In 1998, Aguilera signed with RCA Records and recorded her self-titled debut album, which was released in 1999. The album was a commercial success in the United States, spawning three U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles—"Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants", and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)", and helped Aguilera win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In 2000, RCA released Aguilera's Spanish-language album Mi Reflejo and holiday-theme album My Kind of Christmas. Her 2002 fourth studio album, Stripped, ventured into various genres including hip hop, Latin, and rock, and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for its second single "Beautiful".

Aguilera's 2006 fifth studio album, Back to Basics, was inspired by blues, soul, and jazz music of the 1920s-40s. The album peaked at number one on record charts of thirteen countries and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for its first single "Ain't No Other Man". In 2010, RCA released Aguilera's electronic-influenced album, Bionic, which failed to match the success of her previous albums; later that year, she starred in the film Burlesque. The following year, Aguilera was featured on Maroon 5's top-ten single "Moves like Jagger" and became an original coach on the U.S. television series The Voice, having since appeared on five of its nine seasons. Her 2012 seventh studio album, Lotus, became the lowest-selling album of her career. However, she later experienced rehabilitated commercial success in 2013, being featured on the top-ten singles "Feel This Moment" and "Say Something", which won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

And I

"And I" is a song written by American R&B singer Ciara, and produced by Adonis Shropshire for Ciara's first album, Goodies (2004). It was released as the album's fourth and final single on August 30, 2005 (see 2005 in music) in North America.

The song was originally the third choice for the fourth single. Ciara has mentioned in an interview that "Thug Style", "Hotline" or "Pick up the Phone" would be the fourth single, but when Ciara suggested "And I" to executives at her previous record label LaFace, they were unhappy because they wanted "Next to You" to be the fourth single.

Chart performance

At the time of the U.S. release of "And I", Ciara's collaboration with Bow Wow, "Like You", and her collaboration with Missy Elliott, "Lose Control", were at the height of their popularity. "And I" peaked at 96 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and 27 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, which were poor positions compared to those attained by the first three singles from the album Goodies. It was not released outside North America because of this, and it is Ciara's least successful single.