Glitter - Carey, Mariah (CD 2001)

Yes, I am a Mariah fan and proud of it. And yes, after seeing the movie "Glitter" I admit that I was reluctant to buy this cd... in fact I’m ashamed to say that it took me five long years to purchase it. But after hearing two songs on the radio that were unmistakably Mariah, even to the point of wearing out the newly-released "The Emancipation of Mimi," I found that those songs were not on “Mimi” or previous albums.

A few weeks later I heard “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” on the radio AGAIN and the tune just would not leave my head – don’t you hate when that happens?!! As I was going through a disco music stage at the time I just had to have it! (For all of you kiddies out there, Mariah’s version is a remake of a dance classic from the early 80’s). I started searching the web and also found that “Never Too Far,” the other song I instantly liked, was from Glitter.

Please do yourself a favor and look past the negative movie reviews even if you yourself had misgivings. If you are a Mariah fan you cannot and should not deny yourself this musical gem. The songs are deliciously reminiscent of 1980’s music with an undeniably Mariah flavor. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Mariah’s rendition of another 80’s classic, “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On,” from the late great Robert Palmer. Cool, three great songs already! It’s a terrific disc to listen to at work. I enjoy the variety of disco, hip hop, and ballads. But unfortunately Mariah was going through a tough time personally at the time of this release and some of her most beautiful ballads were overlooked by incompetent reviewers in their race to jump on the Mariah-bashing bandwagon.

I believe that “Loverboy” was the only single released from Glitter. But had “Never Too Far” (for starters) had been released as a single I have no doubt that people would have taken Mariah more seriously and reviewed this and her following albums with less venom. I believe that more singles would have been released; they would have risen to the number one slots, and cemented her place in history as the number-one selling singer/act of all time. But she’s young and there’s still time for her to achieve that goal. As much as I adore Elvis and the Beatles it’s a very exciting race to watch and see if Mariah will take that extraordinary place in history.

Like her or not, Mariah Carey is the voice of our generation. And her Glitter cd sure does shine.