Brenda K. Starr

In March 1999, Mariah Carey hit number 4 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart with “I Still Believe,” which was the third single released from her album #1’s.  It was not, though, the first time the song had charted.  Nearly eleven years earlier, and exactly 25 years ago, the artist who originally recorded “I Still Believe,” Brenda K. Starr, peaked at number 13 with it.  It was Starr’s first Hot 100 single, and it became the biggest hit of her career.

In October of that year, she would hit number 24 with her follow-up single, “What You See Is What You Get,” and her only other single to hit the Hot 100 was the George Lamond song “No Matter What,” which featured Starr as a vocalist and peaked at number 49 in January of 1991.

Carey’s version of “I Still Believe” bears an important connection to Starr’s version, as Carey performed as a backup singer for Starr in the late 1980s.