| Saturday 20 September 2003 |
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The secret ingredient: Mariah Carey
Radio City Music Hall played host on Thursday night to an enormously entertaining revue that celebrated the songs and styles of Mariah Carey, one of the biggest stars of the Roaring Nineties. In her heyday Ms. Carey could do it all: she sang, she pranced, she gesticulated, sometimes all at once. And this show captured her every quirk and excess with uncanny accuracy.
It helped, no doubt, that the star of the show was Ms. Carey herself, and she proved it was really her by punctuating her songs with the sort of shrill, breathy high notes that are more commonly associated with teakettles. Still, she sang her greatest hits with all the gusto and tenderness of a first-rate impersonator - that is, lots and none respectively. And if she ever needs to take a break, she won't have trouble finding a replacement: there were lots of screaming audience members who seemed eager to fill her shoes, including a few women. Ms. Carey's most recent album, "Charmbracelet" (MonarC/Island Def Jam), was neither a blockbuster nor a flop, so the singer has set out on a tour to re-energize her base.
She de-emphasized hip-hop: she didn't perform her recent single "Boy (I Need You)", featuring the rapper Cam'ron, and she presented her biggest hit of the year, the Busta Rhymes collaboration "I Know What You Want", by showing the music video, although she did stroll onstage near the end to sing the bridge. Instead, Ms. Carey gave her biggest fans what they wanted: grandiose ballads, garish sets and lots of costume changes; she looked like the star of a particularly cruel episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl".
She claims Aretha Franklin as a big influence, but the bigger influence seemed to be Cher, another singer who takes silliness seriously. If you paused to wonder why 2 of her 11 dancers began one song by dueling with poles, or why she orchestrated a puppet show making fun of Eminem, or why a clown pretended to paint her portrait during every song, then you were probably at the wrong concert.
Like Cher, Ms. Carey strikes sexy poses to inspire a peculiar kind of passion. For two hours her fans admired her without ogling her, and she in turn played the part of the vixen without ever betraying any desires of her own. There was no sexual tension, even when she indulged, with one member of her troupe, in a form of dancing that may soon be banned from Los Angeles strip clubs.
Thirteen years ago, when Ms. Carey first emerged, she was known for her powerful delivery and wide range, but her singing style these days is much more idiosyncratic: she provided sharp high notes accompanied by great lungfuls of air, and her four back-up singers filled in many of the gaps. One of these singers, Trey Lorenz, stepped out to sing "I'll Be There" with the star; compared to his warm voice, hers sounded distinctly metallic.
None of this takes anything away from Ms. Carey's extraordinary ability to bring down the house every five minutes. Her show-stoppers are so grandiose (and numerous) that resistance seems futile: "Through the Rain", "My All", "My Saving Grace", "Bringin' on the Heartbreak", "Vision of Love", "Hero". Of course, Ms. Carey is no mere singer; she's a one-woman genre, and her act will be imitated in nightclubs for decades. It's probably happening somewhere tonight: a chorus is singing, "Spread your wings and prepare to fly, for you have become a butterfly", and a graceful performer in a wig and pantyhose is taking a final bow, batting a pair of oversize eyelashes and fluttering offstage. (New York Times) Many thanks to Mariah-Carey.org.
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