Mariah Carey's Detroit stop
Over the last 16 years, Mariah Carey has been one of the most talked-about artists in pop music, selling more than 61 million albums in the U.S. alone - more than Michael Jackson, just shy of Madonna - and earning an astonishing 17 No. 1 singles. It's about time she played a concert in Detroit.
The multi-octave diva with the voice that can shatter windshields has performed in Detroit before, during sporting events such as the 1990 NBA Finals and last year's Thanksgiving Day Detroit Lions game. But Saturday's "Adventures of Mimi" concert at The Palace of Auburn Hills (it's not quite Detroit, but you get the picture) marks the first time Carey has ever staged a full-scale concert in our fair city.
So why did it take so long? Carey rarely tours. Prior to her current outing - her biggest production to date - she had only hit the road sporadically, at best. "No one will ever mistake her for James Brown," says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of concert industry-tracking Pollstar magazine, of the touring machine. Carey's first tour, in 1993, included only a handful of dates and was poorly received by critics. She didn't hit the road again until 2000's Rainbow tour, which saw dates scheduled in only nine North American cities.
In 2003, her Charmbracelet tour skipped Detroit; the closest it came was Chicago. But after staging a career-saving comeback with last year's hit-heavy "The Emancipation of Mimi" LP, Carey seems committed to connecting with fans like never before. Hence her excessive tour schedule, and her desire to get out in front of audiences to whom she hasn't previously played. As Carey knows better than anyone, however, all that glitters isn't always gold.
Mixed reviews: So far, box office receipts for the tour have fallen short of blockbuster status, with several shows being canceled or rescheduled due to soft sales. As of Wednesday, nearly 2,000 tickets were still available for Saturday's show, and some local corporations were offering discount tickets to employees.
The tour has been garnering spotty reviews, as well. Crowds have complained her multitude of costume changes (and the time burnt changing into said costumes) distracts from the show, and fans at her recent concert at Uncasville, Conn.'s Mohegan Sun Arena - who paid up to $150 for tickets - were outraged when Carey left the stage after a mere 75 minutes. (Do the math, kids - that's a buck every 30 seconds.)
The 36-year-old songbird's stage presence - or relative lack thereof - has also been called into question, but it's a charge that tour-opener Sean Paul refutes. "I've seen some people say she doesn't have much rhythm, and she's not dancing on stage," the dancehall sensation says by phone. "I don't understand why they just don't appreciate a good voice. I don't know anybody else who could sing so high it sounds like a whistle, and that, to me, is a special person. When she goes - God bless her, which is going to be many years from now - you're not going to find that again. You have to respect people for what they do, for their talent, for what God gave them."
The return of "The Voice": What Carey's been given - that booming, glorious voice - has always been her No. 1 asset. When it was time to mount a comeback after 2001's disastrous "Glitter", and its accompanying soundtrack threatened to derail her career (the movie grossed only $4 million and became a national joke; the soundtrack struggled to sell 500,000 copies), it was the voice that was put front and center: In early print ads, "The Emancipation of Mimi" was touted as "The Return of the Voice". In truth, the voice never really went away. It was there on 2002's limp and uninspired "Charmbracelet", which didn't do much to resuscitate Carey's flagging album sales. But "The Emancipation of Mimi" - Mimi is Carey's alter ego - was her smartest album to date, melding that voice with beats by some of the hottest hip-hop producers in the business (Kanye West, the Neptunes, Jermaine Dupri). The result was pure platinum magic.
Before "Mimi", "We wondered if (Carey) might have crossed the hipness threshold to the point where she might not be able to come back," says Dom Theodore, vice president of programming for Clear Channel Detroit, which owns WKQI-FM (95.5) and WJLB-FM (97.9). "But ('Mimi') had great music, and it just goes to show, first and foremost, it's all about the music."
On its way to becoming 2005's best-selling album - it edged out 50 Cent's "The Massacre" - "Mimi" spun hit singles out of clubby tracks "It's Like That", "Shake It Off" and "Say Somethin'", and the ballads-with-bounce "We Belong Together" and "Don't Forget About Us". Suddenly, Carey became hot property again.
Tour opener Paul says he didn't blink at the opportunity to tour with Carey. "I said, 'Most definitely.' Both of us are having a hot year. She's been having a comeback year; to me, she never went away, but a lot of people doubted her for a moment. But I don't know how people could doubt that voice, you know what I'm saying?" (Detroit News)
|
