Mtv.co conducted an interview with Mariah Carey. An excerpt from the chat follows: This past year found Mariah Carey in some unexpected places: standing next to Dave Navarro covering Def Leppard, playing Caesar's Palace, and singing at the Kremlin, where she recently launched her European tour. Still, perhaps the strangest place of all that Mariah finds herself this fall is back in bed with Sony Music. Due to a leftover contractual obligation, on Tuesday the label from which the singer parted several years ago will release Mariah Carey: The Remixes, an album whose title says it all. The double CD showcases 22 of Carey's reworked recordings ? one disc dance mixes, the other hip-hop. Her bags were packed and ready to go to Moscow, but Mariah managed to squeeze in a few minutes to reflect on The Remixes.
John Norris: Although this record is to an extent just a contractual thing, you say it's still something you're excited about.
Mariah Carey: I'm excited about it because it was out in Japan first and I got it and I listened to it and it's a really good album. All the hip-hop remixes are there, and then you have the club mixes, so it's a totally unique kind of album. It is a contractual thing, and in a way I'm just like [sighs] "OK, this should've been out four years ago," but I think it's definitely like a collector's item. 'Cause a lot of the remixes you couldn't get in stores, you couldn't buy them.
Norris: Do you have a favorite track on either disc?
Carey: Well, there's always "Heartbreaker," and we have the So So Def version of "Honey," which is a real favorite of mine. I like the "Fantasy" remix by David Morales 'cause I like how it starts out in one place and takes you to a totally different place.
Norris: Another version of "Fantasy" - the one that pairs you with Ol' Dirty Bastard - has become your all-time classic remix. How do you explain the song's enduring popularity?
Carey: I think it's the simplicity of the track. It was the first time I worked with Puffy. And he really broke the track down to the basics of that Tom Tom Club loop [from "Genius of Love"]. And I think that there's just a magic to ODB's rhyme ? like, there's something about it, and there's something about his voice mixed with my voice that was just so unexpected. And when we do it now onstage and I hear it and we perform it, it still makes me happy. It's still one of those songs that I love.
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