NEW YORK - Mariah Carey is celebrating her Sweet Sixteenth. The diva notched her 16th No. 1 hit on the Billboard Top 100 singles chart this week with the ballad "We Belong Together," off the album "The Emancipation of Mimi," which has sold more than 2 million copies after less than two months on the charts.
Only the Beatles and Elvis Presley, who had 20 and 18 No. 1 singles respectively, have had more chart-toppers.
"I don't know that it's actually sunken in yet," Carey told The Associated Press on Thursday.
It's just the latest high note for Carey, who's been on the comeback trail with "Mimi," her first album since the 2002's "Charmbracelet." That album didn't have blockbuster sales, and came a year after the "Glitter" flop movie and soundtrack, and her breakdown from exhaustion.
Carey said she didn't know whether "Mimi" would be a best seller: "I didn't know what to expect when I put this record out except I knew that it was a good record and I was happy with it."
Asked why the album was doing so well, Carey said, "I feel like it was just timing and that for the first time, I feel like this is an expression of who I am."
Since its release in April, when it debuted at No. 1, the album has been in the top five every week. On Wednesday night, Island Def Jam Chairman Antonio "L.A." Reid threw Carey a party to celebrate at Jay-Z's 40-40 club. The label says "We Belong Together" is the biggest song in its history with an audience of more than 157 million.
"I look at this moment as an incredible blessing. It's part of my struggle," Carey said. "It's made me a stronger person and made me appreciate this."
And while plenty of critics doubted she would be able to revisit the multiplatinum glory years of her past, Carey doesn't plan on saying "I told you so."
"It's almost as if I were to caught get up in my own hype at the moment ... and be like all, 'Wow, I'm so wonderful,'" she said. "Then I would have to believe all of the naysayers as well."
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