Nov. 10, 1990: “Love Takes Time” takes No. 1

By the summer of 1990, Mariah Carey's self-titled debut album was done: recorded, mastered and headed for pressing. Its first single, “Vision of Love,” had already spent four weeks at No. 1 in August. Then Carey and her writing partner Ben Margulies came up with one more ballad.

On a promotional trip, Carey played the demo on a company plane for Columbia Records executive Don Ienner. By Margulies's later account, the label's verdict was that it was a “career-maker” and had to go on the first album. Carey had wanted to keep it for her second record, and after months spent on the first one she was reluctant to reopen it. Columbia won.

The job of finishing it fast went to Walter Afanasieff, a Columbia staffer who, as Stereogum's history of the song tells it, had never produced a track before and played every instrument on it himself. The music was cut in about a day, Carey sang her vocal in New York, and the mix was done in Sausalito, California, over roughly three days. A remix later pushed her voice louder.

Because it arrived so late, “Love Takes Time” closed the album and was missing from the track listing on the earliest cassette and CD pressings; later pressings corrected that. Columbia released it as the album's second single on Aug. 21, 1990.