Friday 29 August 2003

Mariah Carey returns with emphasis on fans

She's one of the most successful singers in the world. She's had 15 No. 1 hits - more than any other female singer. And with sales of 150 million albums in the 1990s, Mariah Carey's reign was solidified when Billboard magazine named her "Artist of the Decade" for the 1990s.

That was before her brand of dance pop gave way to harder-edged sounds from such newcomers as Christina Aguilera, however. And it was before "Glitter", the failed 2001 album and film that preceded her public dumping by EMI Records - which paid her a reported $28 million simply to leave. And it was before an emotional breakdown in 2001, which followed a public meltdown on MTV's "Total Request Live" and climaxed with her checking into a hospital.

But now Carey, whose current tour brings her to Orlando on Saturday and Tampa on Wednesday, is literally on the comeback trail and taking her case straight to fans. Her new record label, Island/Def Jam, released Carey's most recent album "Charmbracelet" last December.

While it didn't return her to the days of "Daydream," the 1995 smash that sold more than 9 million copies, "Charmbracelet" did enter Billboard's Hot 200 albums chart at No. 3 and has since sold more than 1 million copies. And though it didn't win unanimously glowing reviews, "Charmbracelet" didn't receive the near-universal bashing that "Glitter" did.

Carey recorded the album as the next step in her evolution as a singer, she told The New York Times, rather than as a spiteful response to her exit from EMI. "I didn't do it to answer people, or to justify my validity as an artist," Carey said. "It really was just about an emotional outlet for me."

While Carey's current tour has her playing mostly theaters as opposed to arenas, it returns her to a medium long considered among her best, and in venues where the pressure is less than it would be in cavernous coliseums.

"This particular tour, being in the more intimate venues, does something different to me as an artist and as a performer, rather than being in a vacuous arena," Carey told The Hollywood Reporter. "I can see people in row 15 singing the lyrics to an obscure album cut and see people with fan-club shirts 20 rows back," she said. "That makes me feel good."

Though just 33 years old, Carey's career has already become one of the more storied in pop/rock. She moved to New York City at age 17 to pursue a music career, and sang backup for such singers as Brenda K. Starr. In a story repeated so often it has become part of modern-pop lore, Starr passed Carey's demo tape on to Sony Music executive Tommy Mottola at a party - who was so impressed upon hearing it on the way home that he ordered his limo driver to return to the party so he could meet Carey.

Mottola later signed Carey to two contracts: the first to record albums for Columbia Records, the second to be his wife. Years later, after Carey had surpassed Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Madonna in her number of songs to hit No. 1, both unions were over.

Now in the middle of what may be her most soul-satisfying comeback, Carey has learned to balance such amazing highs with inevitable lows. "The way I look at it is, you take the good with the bad," she told Maxim magazine, in a September cover story. "We're all human and we all go through good times and difficult times. But in the end it's all about getting up the right way. My song 'Through the Rain' is about going through all of these things."

(The Ledger)



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