Well, if you needed a reminder of just how important a single piece of music history can be, look no further than the recent sale confirmed by Wax Poetics: an exceptionally rare early Mariah Carey demo tape fetched a staggering $54,050. That’s a record for the highest-selling cassette by a female artist, proving that sometimes the format doesn’t matter when the content is this foundational. Sourced from producer Arthur Baker’s archive and offered in partnership with Brenda K. Starr, this tape is the legendary one—given to Baker on the same night in 1989 when Starr introduced Carey and the demo to Tommy Mottola at a Christmas party, setting off one of the most consequential breakthroughs in pop music history. Revered as a holy grail by collectors, this recording is one of the only known originals to survive and captures a generational voice taking shape in her raw, unfiltered, pre-label creative form.
The cassette contains seven formative recordings from 1988, including early versions of five songs that would form the nucleus of Carey’s blockbuster 1990 self-titled debut album, which produced four No. 1 singles, plus two unreleased tracks long mythologized by fans. Produced and arranged with Ben Margulies and Chris Toland, the recordings reveal Carey’s wide-ranging musical instincts—from Minneapolis-inspired funk and quiet storm elegance to new-wave-infused synth-pop textures—that Columbia would later distill for global consumption. This stunning sale underscores the tape’s status as a defining piece of pop and R&B history, celebrating not just the material but the self-made beginnings and creative foundations that launched a superstar.