Friday 29 August 2003

Mariah carries newfound confidence

Mariah Carey makes no secret that she's tired of talking about her much-discussed emotional collapse of 2001. "Well, I feel like I've gone over this on Oprah, on Dateline, on this one and that, so I'd rather not talk about it yet again, because it was two years ago," Carey said.

Still, there's no getting around the topic, because it relates strongly to where Carey is in her life today. As even she points out, some songs (most notably "Through The Rain") on her current CD, "Charmbracelet", reflect on the changes that have occurred in her life since that time. "That's why Charmbracelet is so important to me, because it marks a place in my life where I learned to take the initiative, to take care of myself more as a human being, not just as a product," Carey, 33, said.

Throughout the 1990s, Carey's career had seemed charmed, to say the least. Signed at age 18 to Columbia Records, the Long Island native blasted onto the scene with a 1990 self-titled CD that sold more than 9 million copies in the United States alone. Overall, she scored four chart-topping albums, had 15 No. 1 singles and worldwide record sales of 150 million, enough to make her pop's diva of the decade. Plus, she married her boss, Columbia Records president Tommy Motolla, in 1993.

But by the late 1990s, Carey was heading into choppier career waters. First came her breakup with Mottola in 1997. Her relationship with Columbia eroded from there. "It felt really hard and really impossible to stay there and still thrive," Carey said. So Carey moved on, signing with great fanfare an $80 million deal with Virgin Records in 2001. For that label, she recorded "Glitter", a soundtrack album to the movie of the same title. The film flopped, and the soundtrack suffered as well, selling just 557,000 copies in the United States (Carey said worldwide sales were 2 million). Some started questioning Carey's future in music.

Then things went from bad to ugly. In 2001, as she was promoting "Glitter" and dealing with its much-publicized failure, Carey began to show signs of emotional overload. She exhibited odd behavior during appearances on MTV's "Total Request Live" and at a record store signing in Garden City, N.Y. Then, July 25, came the real meltdown. That day, Carey trashed her room at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in Manhattan. She was taken from the hotel to her mother's home in Westchester County, where she collapsed. Her mother called for an ambulance for her daughter, who then checked herself in to Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn.

Several news outlets reported that Carey had attempted suicide, something Carey has vigorously denied. In Carey's view, her breakdown was simply a product of overwork as she sought to establish herself apart from Columbia and Mottola. She said the relentless pace of public appearances and travel left her getting only three hours of sleep a night. The exhaustion and frustration, she said, finally caused her to break. "At that point in my life, I was really spiraling trying to keep everything together," she said. "I didn't have the right team around me. I was just neglecting myself. It was just like not treating myself as a human being with the proper respect that one would treat another human being."

Carey emerged from her very public crash determined to put her life and her career back on track. And in many respects, she has come out smelling like a rose. Virgin Records, stung by the disappointing performance of "Glitter", bought out Carey's contract, reportedly paying her $28 million. Then Carey signed with Island Def Jam, netting what's been reported as a $20 million deal for three albums.

"Charmbracelet", her first release under the Island/Def Jam deal, however, has delivered mixed results. Released in December, its first two singles, "Through The Rain" and "Boy (I Need You)", fizzled. Sales of the CD, however, have topped 1 million. And now "Charmbracelet" is getting a second life. Carey released a new version of the CD on July 29, adding four tracks, including her recent Top 5 hit duet with Busta Rhymes, "I Know What You Want". The song initially appeared only on Rhymes' CD, "It Ain't Safe No More".

Still, Carey's level of popularity remains under question, especially in light of her decision this spring to downsize a U.S. tour of arenas and instead play theaters. The singer, though, said her decision to play smaller venues was not based on slow ticket sales. Instead, it's a sign of her independence as an artist, as she chose to play venues where she could interact with her audience.

"I feel like at this point in my life, I'm in control," Carey said. "I'm in the driver's seat, and I can dictate what I want to do. So if I want to do something that showcases my talent as a singer and songwriter, yet also lets me have my personality, fun moments and the more theatrical stuff and the audience interaction, it's just the perfect thing for me to do."

(Florida Today)



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