Mariah Carey giving fans what they want
For her current concert tour, Mariah Carey wanted it both ways - a little bit of glitter, as well as a vision of love so her fans "can feel like they've really had the experience of being there with me and having an intimate evening". In other words, a big (and profitable) show with a touch of class.
So Carey - who made a big deal out of "downsizing" her tour plans even though she's still playing mostly large-scale arenas and amphitheaters - describes her "Charmbracelet" tour as "sort of like [MTV] Unplugged meets Cabaret, cause we've got a big production in terms of the dancing and the whole kind of cabaret atmosphere, but also it doesn't take itself too seriously. And it's not like I take myself too seriously out there, either."
Carey has the credentials to be as serious as she wants, of course. The Long Island-born daughter of opera singer Patricia Carey, she emerged from singing backup for Brenda K. Starr to win the Grammy Award for best new artist for her nine-times platinum, chart-topping, self-titled debut album in 1990.
The rest of the decade was marked by a series of achievements as staggering as Carey's seven-octave voice. Carey has sold more than 140 million albums worldwide and logged 15 No. 1 hits on the Billboard charts - which spent more cumulative weeks there than any other artist in history's hits.
Conscious of that body of work, Carey opened up her tour repertoire to her fans via an online poll. And while the top choices were established hits such as "Hero" and "Through the Rain", Carey says there have been some surprises from deep in her 11-album catalog.
"There's obscure songs from my first album, like a song called Sent From Above, I never thought that anybody would vote for stuff like that," she says. "Basically, I'm trying to incorporate as much as I can from the list into my concerts."
When Carey has failed, it's been as spectacular as her successes. Her divorce from Columbia Records chief Tommy Mottola was prime tabloid fare in the mid-1990s. Then her 2001 film "Glitter" was a bomb with critics and moviegoers, and Carey exacerbated the damage with erratic public behavior - including lengthy suicidal messages on her Web site - that she chalked up to exhaustion.
Looking back, Carey blames part of "Glitter's" failure on its release date - three days after the Sept. 11 attacks. But she acknowledges that it was not exactly a case of putting her best cinematic foot forward, either. Carey rebounded from "Glitter" by switching record companies and issuing a successful album - last year's "Charmbracelet." So far, the record has sold more than 3 million copies. (Cleveland.com)
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