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Stylish Carey strains in search of soul
Two years ago, Mariah Carey might as well have swapped the M in her first name
for a P. Carey released an atrocious vanity film, "Glitter", that flopped on
arrival. After the companion soundtrack performed poorly, she was bought out
of her multimillion-dollar recording contract with Virgin - essentially paid
not to record. Finally, faced with so many humiliating setbacks, the once
mighty diva self-destructed in as messy and public a manner as possible.
Or did she? PR has a magical way of rewriting history. Did Carey suffer a
nervous breakdown, or was she truly overworked and exhausted? Did her new
record label, Island, decide to re-release her most recent album "Charmbracelet"
because it didn't do well when originally released late last year, or just to
hype her comeback tour? And for that matter, was Carey's summer trek downsized
from arenas to theaters because she was having trouble selling enough tickets
to fill the former, or really because the singer wanted a more intimate setting?
No one would confuse the United Center with an intimate theater, though the
arena was reconfigured for fewer people Tuesday night. Carey probably could
have made the date still more intimate, since even with the nosebleeds curtained
off there were plenty of empty seats. When Carey made her appearance from the
back of the venue, strolling past her fans, the response was enthusiastic but
relatively restrained, not quite a reaction fit for a star.
Either Carey didn't notice, or she was pretending not to notice. "You are
definitely the best audience I've had to date," she claimed unconvincingly
half way through her set, revealing that her acting turn in "Glitter" was
no fluke. This was after an hour of some of her biggest hits, songs like
the bouncy "Heartbreaker", "Dreamlover" and "Honey" that briefly roused
the crowd before the next ballad brought them down (often literally). It's
fitting that the high-pitched virtuoso squeak Carey unleashed on nearly
every song sounded like a balloon losing air, since the show seemed deflated
almost from the first note.
It still featured about a dozen dancers, enlisted to fill space and time
while Carey changed from one miniskirt or low-cut gown to the next. She went
through eight in all, at one point disappearing for several minutes while her
dancers boogied down to her duet with rapper Busta Rhymes, "I Know What You
Want", the band (assuming it was even playing) hidden behind a curtain. Or
maybe Mariah just needed to rest the voice that launched 1,000 horrible
"American Idol" auditions. For such would-be showstoppers, "I'll Be There",
which she sang with backing vocalist Trey Lorenz, and the finale "Home"
were a little ragged.
The closest Carey came to something soulful was Def Leppard's "Bringin' on
the Heartbreak". Other than that, the show was as rote and dispiriting
as the ramshackle roadside circus the stage sometimes resembled. Maybe
that's what once mighty Mariah gets for picking a butterfly as her personal
mascot: nice to look at, but not the best harbinger of longevity.
(MetroMix)
Many thanks to Mariah-Carey.org.
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| Wednesday 30 July 2003
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