Mariah Carey

Oh, Mariah. Mariah, Mariah, Mariah. That's sort of the stock response to the Glitter era, right? It's certainly not lacking in massive missteps, from the desperate-to-be-down hip-hop references to the fact that Mariah didn't really sing so much on this album. Glitter is haunted by the ghost of what it could've been: a campy and, yes, glittery tribute to some of the 1980s' best sounds. Mimi could've really killed on that, but 2001-era Mariah? Not so much. But if there had been no Glitter, no colossal meltdown, there would have been no Mimi to emancipate.

Mariah Carey called her last album Rainbow and the one before that Butterfly. So many
Mariah fans will probably be disappointed that she didn't decide to title this one Unicorn.
(Or how about Kitten? Maybe Koala?) But damn if Glitter isn't a big step forward in terms of
maturity for one of pop music's eternal kids. One of the many deeply weird things about
Mariah is that she's never had much interest in growing up: She blew up big in th... More >