Can Mariah Beat Celine?

The first time I listened to Celine Dion, I instantly fell in love with her beautiful voice. It was when I was a kid and my brother showed me a performance of Celine Dion singing “A New Day Has Come” on TV. She was singing as if she had been talking. Several years passed, I unintentionally listened to a song entitled “Hero” and I was wondering who the singer was. I thought it was Celine Dion but then I figured out that it was Mariah Carey. As what I felt about Celine, I was instantly crazy about Mariah, too. Since then, I argued with myself about who was better between them. After years of listening to their music and comparing their vocal skills, I can now say that Mariah Carey is better than Celine Dion at some reasons.

 First of all, Mariah’s vocal range is much wider than that of Celine. Mariah’s lowest note is G#2 that she showed in an interview. Celine’s lowest note is B2. Moving to the highest note, Mariah’s highest ever note is G#7 that she sang in the improvisation part of “Emotions” song at Video Music Award in 1991 while Celine’s highest note is E6 that she exclaimed in a show at TV5. It can be calculated that Mariah’s vocal range is 5 octaves while Celine’s is 3 octaves and 5 notes. It means that Mariah has a wider vocal range.

Listening to their timbres, Mariah can produce voices better than what Celine can do. Mariah’s lower notes sound stronger compared to Celine’s. According to www.divadevotee.com, a website that discusses about vocal skills of well-known singers all over the world, the lower range of Mariah is heavy. It sounds like a man voice. Meanwhile, Celine’s lower range sounds quite weak and slightly raspy. Also, Celine’s midrange is thick, whereas Mariah’s midrange can be either thick or slight. Besides, Mariah can make her midrange sound airy as if whispering. When singing in upper range, Mariah’s belting voice sounds pure and bright yet Celine’s sounds nasal and quite whizzing. Moreover, Mariah can utilize whistle voice, the vocal technique used to hit very high notes and it is the rarest vocal skill mastered only by a few singers in the world, yet Celine has nothing to do with it.

Furthermore, improvisation is something which Mariah always amazingly does when singing and Celine, by contrast, sings with less improvisation. Mariah’s live performance can sound far different from her studio version. For instance, the performance of “Hero” during her Daydream World Tour totally differs from the studio version. She beautified the song with many high notes which cannot be found in the studio version. On the other hand, Celine’s live performance sounds nearly the same as the studio version. The best thing about Mariah is that she can hit a high note and elastically jump to another high note to create an improvisation while Celine tends to sing lifelessly because of less improvisation.

After comparing those aspects, Mariah can be considered better than Celine. Mariah beats Celine in terms of vocal range, vocal production and improvisation. People now or in the future may often compare any singers to Mariah and make her a standard of a good female singer.