Glitter is a soundtrack album and the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey, recorded for the film Glitter and released by Virgin Records in the United States on 11 September 2001. It was a commercial failure compared to Carey’s previous albums, and professional reviews either praised her for the new territories she explored (Rolling Stone declared it “a big step forward in terms of maturity for one of pop music’s eternal kids … [it] sure beats the hell out of Moulin Rouge’s “Lady Marmalade“” and gave it a three-star review) or criticized it as a disconcerting departure. Reviews by Amazon.com and Yahoo.Launch.com praised Glitter as one of Carey’s best efforts.

Description

As a concept album of the sounds of the early 1980s, Glitter features contributions from dominant figures of the period: Rick James wrote “All My Life”, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis reworked their song “Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” and wrote with Carey the retro track “Want You”, while Cameo are featured on lead single “Loverboy”. The album also includes collaboratons with rappers Busta Rhymes, Mystikal, Da Brat, Ludacris, Fabolous, Shawnna, 22, Ja Rule, Nate Dogg, Cameo and R&B singer Eric Benét.

Chart performance and singles

It was released shortly before the film Glitter, in which Carey starred, which was a critical and commercial failure. Carey has cited the September 11, 2001 attacks as one of the reasons the album failed. In an interview she said, “I released it around 9/11. The talk shows needed something to distract from 9/11. I became a punching bag. I was so successful that they tore me down because my album was at number two instead of number one [a reference to the peak position of "Loverboy", and not actually to the album]. The media was laughing at me and attacked me.” In reality, the album debuted at number seven on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, becoming Carey’s lowest peaking album at this point and remained in the top twenty for two weeks and on the chart for just twelve; it spent less time on the charts than some of her albums spent in the Top Ten alone. It has sold about 2.5 million copies worldwide, however, only 611,259 has been sold in the U.S as of 4 March 2006. - meaning that of the 1 million copies shipped (the necessary amount to be certified platinum), almost 400,000 went unpurchased. However, Glitter was a number-one selling album in countries such as Japan, where it became the first international soundtrack to reach the number one position. It also reached pole position in Greece, Korea (where it is already certified gold), Singapore (double platinum), Taiwan, and Hong Kong, while it debuted in the Top Ten in the Philippines (#3), Spain (#3, gold), Canada (#4, platinum), France (#5, gold), Italy (#5), Germany (#7), United Kingdom (#10), Ireland (#84), and Switzerland (#10).

Lead single “Loverboy” peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to become the best-selling single of 2001 in the U.S. (partly because of a huge price cut), but follow-up singles “Never Too Far” and “Don’t Stop (Funkin’ 4 Jamaica)” failed to chart in the U.S. A music video was filmed for “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life“, but it was inmediately shelved after Virgin Records dropped Carey. “Reflections (Care Enough)” and “Lead the Way” were issued as radio singles outside the U.S. though copies of the single for “Reflections (Care Enough)” appear rarely in some US stores, and copies of both songs respectively, appear for sale on eBay constantly.

The song “If We” was later re-worked by Damizza and released as a single titled “What Would You Do” with Butch Cassidy, Nate Dogg and Carey in 2004 (see 2004 in music). Conflict between Damizza and Shade Sheist led Damizza to recruit Cassidy to replace Sheist on the single version. Sheist retaliated with his own remix titled “G-Mix”, which is a re-worked version featuring Nune and Carey. “What Would You Do” was popular on the west coast of the U.S. and Carey even performed it while on tour in Los Angeles, but it was a failure elsewhere in the country. The song received minimal airplay in Europe.

Track listing

1. “Loverboy” (remix) featuring Ludacris, Shawnna, 22 and Da Brat – 4:30
2. “Lead the Way” – 3:53
3. “If We” featuring Ja Rule and Nate Dogg – 4:20
4. “Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” – 4:54
5. “Don’t Stop (Funkin’ 4 Jamaica)” featuring Mystikal – 3:37
6. “All My Life” – 5:09
7. “Reflections (Care Enough)” – 3:20
8. “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” featuring Busta Rhymes and Fabolous – 6:43
9. “Want You” featuring Eric Benet – 4:43
10. “Never Too Far” – 4:21
11. “Twister” – 2:26
12. “Loverboy” featuring Cameo – 3:49

Tracks in Relation to the “Glitter” Movie

1. “Loverboy”: The main character, Billie Frank’s, mainstream breakthrough single. At first, it is overloaded with effects, before it is toned down to sound more like how it appears on the album.
2. “Lead the Way”: Played during the ending credits and when Billie first kisses Dice, Billie’s producer and boyfriend.
3. “Didn’t Mean to Turn You On”: The first song Billie makes with Dice; it becomes an underground hit and Billie performs it at the USA Music Awards.
4. “Don’t Stop (Funkin’ 4 Jamaica)”: Bridge is performed by Billie during a freestyle at Dice’s club.
5. “All My Life”: A song made by the fictional pop star Sylk in which Billie first is hired to sing back-up vocals for. After the producer of the song heard how well Billie could sing, they got her to sing the song and release it under Sylk’s name. However, after a performance where Sylk gets Billie to ‘ghost’ the song and she takes full credit for singing the song, Billie gets angry and shows Dice that she was the real singer of the song.
6. “Reflections (Care Enough)”: A song Billie writes about her mother. However, the record company did not approve of the ‘woe is me’ attempt that she made.
7. “Last Night a DJ Saved my Life”: Played at a club; intro bassline and drums only.
8. “Want You”: Billie records this song with fictional RNB singer Rafael; it becomes a hit.
9. “Never Too Far”: A song Billie and Dice both write at the end of the movie regarding their break-up. She sings the song at her sold-out show in Madison Gardens Square after Dice dies.
10. “Twister”: Played when Billie was taken away from her mother in the beginning of the movie.

Charts