Make It Happen
"
Make It Happen" is a song written and produced by
Mariah Carey with
David Cole and
Robert Clivillés of the
C&C Music Factory, and recorded for Carey's second album
Emotions (1991). It is a
dance/
gospel hybrid in which Carey sings "if you believe in yourself enough and know what you want, you're going to make it happen", and it was released as the album's third and final
single in 1992 (see
1992 in music).
Carey's first five U.S. singles had reached number one on the
Billboard Hot 100; her sixth, "
Can't Let Go", had reached number two. Pressure was put on "Make It Happen" to become Carey's next number-one hit, but it peaked at number five. It remained in the top forty for sixteen weeks and was one of the year's bigger hits, being ranked forty-second on the 1992 Hot 100 year-end charts. It received heavy radio
airplay but sold moderately, and its high peak on the U.S. charts was because airplay was beginning to be weighed more heavily by
Billboard magazine than sales. The single became Carey's first in the U.S. not to top any other Billboard chart, and underperformed outside the U.S. like "Can't Let Go". It became her first single to miss the top ten in
Canada, but it fared better than the previous single in the
United Kingdom and
Australia.
Like every earlier U.S. single release from Carey, it won a
BMI Pop Award. This made every single from
Emotions a BMI award winner, matching the record set by her debut album
Mariah Carey. The single's
video, directed by
Marcus Nispel, features Carey holding an impromptu
benefit concert inside a church slated for closing.
Carey performed an acoustic version of the song on the television show
MTV Unplugged in 1992, and her setlist for the show was later released on the EP
MTV Unplugged. Reviewing Carey's
Unplugged appearance,
Rolling Stone magazine wrote of "Make It Happen": "a somewhat obnoxious slice of self-help dance rhythm in its original version, is transferred into a bubbly gush of pure pop".
[[1]] Another version is a
remix by the song's orginal producers, David Cole and Robert Clivillés, titled the "C+C classic version".
As of 2006, the song continues to receive heavy airplay on U.S.
adult contemporary radio stations such as Los Angeles's
K-BIG. Carey frequently performs "Make It Happen" in concert, as well as at charity and fundraising events. One of her most widely-seen performances was at
Live 8 in London's Hyde Park in July 2005, as part of the multicontinental awareness-raising project to reduce poverty in Africa.
*
U.S. CD maxi single (cassette maxi single/12" single)#"Make It Happen" (extended version)#"Make It Happen" (dub version)#"Make It Happen" (C+C classic version)#"Make It Happen" (radio edit)#"Make It Happen" (album version)#"
Emotions" (Special Motion edit)
| Chart (1992) | Peak
position | | U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 5 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks | 7 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play | 16 |
| U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary | 3 |
| U.S. ARC Weekly Top 40 | 2 |
| Canadian Singles Chart | 16 |
| UK Singles Chart | 17 |
| Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 35 |
*
Lyrics for the album version
