Carey's Glitter is pure gold
Glitter is the latest release from eternal pop princess Mariah Carey. After selling 150 million records worldwide, obtaining 15 No. 1 hits she cowrote and produced and breaking records for longevity as a chart-topper, one would think Carey is out of firsts. However, she is releasing her first motion picture and her first album for Virgin Records.
The album has some of the most powerful ballads Carey has written in a long time, along with some deliciously upbeat, synthesizer-infused '80s music that will serve as the background for her motion picture.
Also present in the album is Carey's continuing dilemma to please the fans she gained as pop's Cinderella while trying to follow her own artistic leanings that lead her to indulge in her passion for hip-hop/R&B. This produces varied results on this album.
The most unfortunate thing about the album is the fact that it opens and closes with its least effective song, "Loverboy". The single was released earlier this year and became the first debut single from a Carey album not to make No. 1. The song is a laid-bare R&B confection with rap interludes that make Mariah's powerful eight-octave range seem irrelevant and out of place. The remix, which opens the album, plays even heavier on the rap.
And that dichotomy is Carey's greatest failing in songs that could have otherwise been glittering gems. In "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life", Mariah's lower-range husky mutterings seem out of place amidst the rapping of guest artists Fabulous, Busta Rhymes and DJ Clue. Fortunately, the song's funky '80s groove saves it from actually bombing. Ditto for "Don't Stop".
The most successful of the upbeat songs is the fabulously funky "If We". The song fuses '80s techno with elements of modern pop and R&B and actually showcases Mariah's voice. The song's appeal though, is mostly based on its catchy chorus, which is the only part of the song that rids itself of the out-of-place rapping by Nate Dogg.
The album's peak comes in the form of an elegant, touching Carey-penned ballad that manages to showcase her voice without sacrificing emotion. Thematically, "Reflections" is presented as an abandoned daughter's plea to her mother. However, Carey has always been quite elliptic with her revelations and it's not difficult to read other meaning into the words.
In a voice that can only be described as soulfully virtuous, Carey sings of her former husband, Tommy Mottola: "Reflections of your love have come to wither... a picture fades of you and I together/ I haven't come to terms with how we said good-bye". Then she seems to ask Mottola directly: "Did you really care?/ Care at all for me?"
Carey mines more personal territory in the subtly devastating ballad "Twister", a tribute to her personal wardrobe assistant, Tonjua Twist, who committed suicide last year. Accompanied only by a piano, Mariah's voice shines as she sings pleadingly, "Dear God, it's all so tragic/ And I'll never have the chance to feel the closure/ That I ultimately need".
And in one of the most candid, introspective lines Carey has ever written, she admits, "Yeah/ I'm feeling kind of fragile/ And I've got a lot to handle/ But I guess this is my way of saying good-bye". The only strange thing about the song is the fact that no one responded to Carey's quite overt cry for help before it was too late.
Although Carey called her previous album Rainbow a chronicle of the emotional roller coaster that 1999 had been for her, Glitter has a much more powerful effect on the listener. In the end, Glitter succeeds, and not as some '80s-themed record, but as a showcase for some of the most beautiful melodies and best singing that the world's biggest-selling female artist has ever done. (The Maneater) Many thanks to Foraimee.
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