Beautiful

"Beautiful" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriters Mariah Carey and Miguel, released as the lead single from Mariah's 14th studio album The Art Of Letting Go. Instantly impacting upon its May 2013 release, it was Mariah's 18th song to chart and Miguel's first. "Beautiful" quickly climbed up the chart and reached #1 the week of June 16, 2013, becoming Mariah's second #1 single and immediately following her first, "Almost Home".

The return of Mariah Carey after her last studio album was released in 2009 was highly anticipated as I looked forward to what she would do next. She had impressed me throughout her career despite transitions from pop ballads to R&B-influenced pop to straight R&B and hip hop, as the power of her vocals remained her key focus.

Despite a misfire with "Triumphant (Get 'Em)", released in August 2012 to critical and commercial disappointment, the era showed it could have potential when her contribution to the soundtrack of Disney's Oz The Great And Powerful, "Almost Home", was released in February 2013, and I thought it was her strongest song in years, managing to become her first JT40 #1 after the top spot infamously eluded her for almost 10 years in a career dating back to the very first JT40 chart. And when the new album's lead single hit radio just weeks later, she raised the bar yet again.

"Beautiful" was released in May 2013 as the lead single for her 14th studio album, entitled The Art Of Letting Go. It was released in collaboration with alternative R&B singer Miguel, who was fresh off a breakthrough with his critically acclaimed second album Kaleidoscope Dream. The pair's collaboration wasn't confirmed until the week before the song's release, but rumors they were working on a song together began April 3 after Mariah complimented Miguel's performances on Saturday Night Live on Twitter and mentioned she ran into him in the studio. Miguel said in an interview with MTV News he had a crush on Mariah since he first saw the music video for her 1997 single "Honey", and has a "huge crush more on her as a musician," adding he thought a collaboration between himself and Mariah would sound "really great."

The song opens with a guitar lick and continues with a bass line and percussion that many critics believe harks back to the Motown era. Mariah said in an interview she enjoyed recording the song because it wasn't designed to follow any current pop music trends: "I feel like this is the first record I've ever released that’s simmering and bubbling up… It’s a feel-good record… It’s genre-less... It’s not following a trend. That’s the best thing about this record in my opinion, because having to follow trends is not what’s fun about making music."

While the song might not sound trendy, its marketing appeared to be, as the song's official title is a hashtag (#Beautiful). Hashtags, used in social media as a way to label messages in a specific group, became a pop music trend in recent years thanks to song titles from artists such as Cobra Starship (#1Nite) and will.i.am (#thatPOWER). Fans and critics - myself included - believe hashtags are unnecessary in song titles.

Hailed by many as Mariah Carey's best song in years, "Beautiful" proved immediate with me, although my four-and-a-half-star review of the song in JT40 Magazine (a half-star improvement over "Almost Home") noted it was "very different for Mariah" and critiqued the fact Mariah doesn't have enough of a vocal presence on the song. However, it was Mariah's fastest impacting song of her career, debuting at #23 upon its release and reaching the #1 spot just five weeks later. "Beautiful" spent three weeks at #1 on JT40, marking Mariah's second chart-topper and Miguel's first. Its success showed that even with a decade of big chart hits under her belt, the best is yet to come.