The Ballads (Mariah Carey album)
2008 compilation album by Mariah Carey
The Ballads is the third compilation album by American singer Mariah Carey. The album features some of Carey's top-selling ballads over the course of her career. It was released internationally in late 2008, in North America in January 2009, and in the United Kingdom in February 2010. It debuted at number ten on the US Billboard 200, marking the highest debut of the week, and also peaked atop the UK R&B Albums Chart.
Background and release
The album was announced in 2008 and was set to feature various ballads both from Carey's time at Columbia Records and from the soundtrack album, Glitter (2001). The album did not feature any new material or any songs from then-label, Island Records. The album was released internationally on various dates from October 2008, and later released throughout North America on January 20, 2009. For the North American release of the album, Carey re-recorded her 1993 single "Hero". A music video was shot which showed Carey singing in a recording room accompanied by her dog. It is intercut with a scene of New York City during the night.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Ballads (Mariah Carey album)” as 2008 compilation album by Mariah Carey. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2008 compilation album by Mariah Carey. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q981082. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Ballads (Mariah Carey album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.