Glitter

Has one or two very light surface marks, but plays fine, sounds sublime. From a well cared for personal collection. Buy with confidence--see my feedback.

Despite songbird Mariah Carey's emotional troubles during the release of the soundtrack to Glitter, she has never sounded giddier. In keeping with the semiautobiographical flick's 1980s time frame, Glitter mines the rich and rhythmic fields of discofied funk and club-friendly jams, and Carey soars on thumping covers of Indeep's "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" (featuring DJ Clue, Busta Rhymes, and New Jack of the moment Fabolous), and Cherrelle's skittish, synth-soaked love song "Didn't Mean to Turn You On," which in a nice touch, is revisited by its production auteurs Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Also well worth a listen is "All My Life," a sweet and nasty Rick James track that finds Mariah looser than she's ever been; it's on those uptempo jams that Mariah is all sass and sex. Unfortunately, she loses the mood on the by-the-numbers ballads, which slow the party down just as it's getting hot. --Amy Linden