The news are claiming that more singles will be released from the album instead of releasing the album itself, which is merely putting the cancellation in nicer terms. Of course they wouldn't want their money to go to waste. Guest artists were paid to appear on these "remixes".
I saw this coming the moment I realised no album art was released and there was no hype on the official website or anywhere. I'm just hoping MC will release her next album in 2015, which is five years from now, because in 1995, she released Daydream, which went on to sell 10 million albums in USA alone, and became one of the best-selling albums of all-time. And in 2005, she released The Emancipation of Mimi, which became the best-selling album of that year and has sold 6 million in the USA alone. Which means that her successful years end with "5", so I'm hoping she'll go on hiatus and return five years later. =D Not realistic, but quite logical lah.
Glitter By Glitter
Introduction
Introduction
Now! I think I have stressed a lot to Wan'er about the darkest moments in Mariah's career. Anyone who has been catching the news since 2001 will know that she suffered a nervous breakdown and fainted due to exhaustion, checked into a hospital for weeks, left upset messages on her website for her fans, and also, the movie she was filming, Glitter, turned out to be a big failure with low ratings and low revenue.
So everytime I'm having a dark moment, I'll think it's my "Glitter moment" because that's the equivalent of Mariah's career, or probably, even her life.
In fact, Glitter also had a soundtrack which failed. If a singer can't pull off a successful film, he/she should still be able to excel in the film's music. After all, he/she is a singer and that is his/her profession. Unfortunately, the Glitter soundtrack, which comprises of 12 Mariah Carey songs entirely, was also a failure and was the worst-charting studio album in MC's career, and the only single to chart from the album is Loverboy, which went to #60 initially.
After the price of the single was greatly reduced, people then started buying the song which boosted the chart position of Loverboy all the way to #2. The subsequent singles failed to chart. And hence Mariah was dropped from her record label, being paid $28 million to leave.
That's actually frigging a lot ah. Hahahaha. They pay to fire you, ya know! That's incredible.
And so, this pretty much is the darkest moment of Mariah Carey's career.
But why is Glitter such a failure? You know, I first watched it online through Youtube. You can probably do a search. The videos might still be intact. Then I realised the movie rental stall that I usually go to (it's near my house) has the VCD for Glitter as well, and being the MC fan that I am, I had to rent it and watch it on television instead of the laptop.
And since it's a VCD, I've copied the .DAT files in the MPEGAV folder, which means the movie is now in my computer. And since I have the movie in my computer, I thought it would be interesting if I analysed the movie scene by scene.
And henceforth, I bring you Glitter By Glitter, since I'm doing this little by little bit. This will be the first of many parts of Glitter By Glitter. The movie is about a girl who enters the music industry with the help of a DJ, and falls in love with him, but meanwhile faces problems trying to find her long-lost mother and handling the difficulties of her rising career. Okay, I think I've made long enough an introduction. Start lo!
There's no better way to describe the first 10 minutes of the film, because if you translate it on paper, it will act like a prologue.
We start the movie off with this woman who looks like she's in her forties, singing in a jazz club or a bar or something. It's really mundane and dark and boring and sleazy and there are very little people in the club.
And she's not doing a very good job because she seems to be singing the wrong lyrics if I'm wrong, so it's safe to say that she's not a singer in the first place and just doing this because why? She has no money. Good inference eh?! (Ironically, she can sing)
And I think the people at the bar start shouting, that's not right!, criticising her for not being able to sing correctly. I've already been annoyed singing someone on Singapore Idol screw up the lyrics to Always Be My Baby, so if I was there and I knew the song, I'll be splashing my drink at her.
Not knowing how to give a good performance, fantastic lady here decides to call upon a girl sitting by the bar. And that girl is.... Mariah Carey!
Okay, actually it's a little girl playing the younger version of the character Mariah plays. The character is named Billie Frank and she's the lead character throughout the whole film. This is a prologue, so Billie is still a little girl.
I think it's quite sad for a mom to call upon her child to SOS her in a performance. And you might think that the little girl starts singing well to aid her mom, but in truth I think it just made the whole performance worse. Strangely enough the audience starts applauding.
The whole scene at the jazz club / bar was very very boring, and everytime I rewatch the show, I'll skip this scene. I think actually I skip this whole Prologue of 10 minutes cause who really wants to watch it when there's no Mariah?
Yep, Mariah does not appear for the first 10 minutes.
I personally thought the young Billie did a sucky performance. What happens is that her mom gets fired from her job or something. She should, cause she can't perform and it's very boring.
So, with nowhere else to go, her mom decides to bring Billie to see her father. You notice that Billie is white, her mom is black, and her dad is white. That's because Billie is mixed. And in reality, Mariah Carey is mixed, although it's reversed (in real life, her mom is white and her dad is black).
There are many parallels in this film to Mariah's life, actually. Critics say the film is like a semi-autobiography of Mariah's life itself, although Mariah denies it.
Going back, her mom wants money from Billie's father, so he decides to pass them a stack of cash even though it's really not going to help in the long run. I think Billie's an accident, explaining why her mom and dad are not together.
Not important actually. No one really cares.
They go back home, and Billie goes to sleep. The stressed-up mom decides to take a smoke while on the couch and shortly after, she falls asleep even though her cigarette is still hot, I think.
And yes, fire breaks out. Is this scene dramatic or typical in any sense? Aiya, bottom line is, don't fall asleep when you smoke.
Their whole house goes up in flames. I'm guessing that stack of cash Billie's father gave to them was also burned up. Hahahahahah.
You know, I wouldn't be standing there so melancholically watching the fire eat up my house. I'll be like screaming and going crazy. In fact, I wouldn't dare to look lah!
Because Billie's mom is unable to support Billie at all, with no money, no housing, no food, no nothing, the federals decide to split them up, and you see the scene where they talk for possibly the final time, and then, bye bye, I love you.
Billie is brought to a child care centre I think. I don't think it's an orphanage, because she never gets adopted. And there are many other parentless children there. I think Billie has no uncles or aunts, or maybe they don't want her.
Interestingly, she's allowed to bring her cat along with her. You see her holding on to it while in the car and when she enters the centre for the first time.
Billie tries to settle down, and actually she's really lucky, because the moment she sits down, two girls approach her and start talking her, sparking the beginning of a three-girl friendship. Yep, those two girls will appear for the rest of the film, older of course.
When I first watched the scene I thought the two girls were gonna bully her or something.
And that's pretty much it for the first 10 minutes of the film. Mama gets fired from job, finds papa for money, goes home and burns it accidentally, loses her child, who makes two new friends.
Just some final thoughts: her mom never comes to visit her. Why? Prohibited? That's quite awful ah. And what's the child centre about anyway? You grow up there or something? I don't know how it works.
In the next part, you'll finally see Mariah for the first time in the film as Billie Frank, and the early stages of her being recognized as a musical talent.
TTYS.
Read Glitter By Glitter #2
When I first watched the scene I thought the two girls were gonna bully her or something.
And that's pretty much it for the first 10 minutes of the film. Mama gets fired from job, finds papa for money, goes home and burns it accidentally, loses her child, who makes two new friends.
Just some final thoughts: her mom never comes to visit her. Why? Prohibited? That's quite awful ah. And what's the child centre about anyway? You grow up there or something? I don't know how it works.
In the next part, you'll finally see Mariah for the first time in the film as Billie Frank, and the early stages of her being recognized as a musical talent.
TTYS.
Read Glitter By Glitter #2
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