Glitter (Deluxe Edition) by Mariah Carey: A Messy & Misunderstood Album That Finally Gets It Time to Shimmer in the Spotlight, 25 Years Later
On September 11, 2001, the iconic songbird supreme Mariah Carey dropped her highly controversial and publicized soundtrack album Glitter. It served as the soundtrack to her debut film of the same name. Glitter has always fascinated me and the three other fans of this album. From her ex-husband record executive Tommy Mottola sabotaging her, a mental breakdown, and even to releasing the day of 9/11. Now 25 years later, Carey dropped the 25th anniversary deluxe edition on October 30, 2026. This also means that the album is finally available on streaming with twelve bonus tracks. In this article, I will get into every detail surrounding this highly controversial album, and how it has cemented it’s place in not only music, but pop culture HISTORY…
The (Very Long) “Context”
In the 1990’s, Mariah Carey was an unstoppable force in the music industry. By the time Glitter came around, Carey had racked up a staggering fifteen number ones on the Billboard Hot 100. At that time, she had won multiple awards including Best New Artist at the GRAMMY’s, and even “Artist of the Decade” at the American Music Awards. Sometime in December 1996, Tommy Mottola, the head of Sony Records at the time, and Carey separated, after being married for nearly three years. In Carey’s book, she called the mansion her and Mottola lived in as “Sing-Sing”, referencing the famous prison. She felt trapped being married to him. As this was during her “Daydream” album era, the next album era came that next year
The Sticky & Messy Success of “Honey” & the Album “Butterfly”
“Honey” was released as the lead single from “Butterfly” in August 1997. Carey showed up to the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards in a revealing dress, featuring a massive slit in the thigh region. This was in a way her “revenge” dress against all the stress and control that Mottola placed her under. “Honey” and the second single “My All” both went number one in 1997 and 1998.
The Rainbow-Sized Cracks
Though, this is where the label pressure began to build on Mariah and her time remaining at Colombia. Yes, she was still under the record label her ex-husband controls. Carey was the Colombia Records’ biggest artist after all, they weren’t letting her go that easily. In 1999, Carey dropped her album Rainbow however, the air has changed for this era. “Heartbreaker”, it’s lead single, went number one, but quickly free-fell off the chart entirely. The same thing happened with Rainbow’s second single “Thank God I Found You”. It jumped to number one, then fell off.
This is where Carey’s relationship with Colombia began souring. Carey wanted “Can’t Take That Away (Mariah’s Theme)” to be the third single off of Rainbow. She fought her label to get a music video and single release. However, Colombia went against those wishes, and instead sent “Crybaby” as the third single, making it a double single with “Can’t Take That Away”. A music video for both songs were filmed. How the Hot 100 worked in 1999 for a double single, was the single with the most radio play would get to chart. Of course, the R&B, west coast hip-hop sounding song, “Crybaby”, would get the most spins, and end up being the song to chart. It debuted and left the top 30 in nearly 6 weeks.
The “Ultimate” 49 Million Dollar Deal with Virgin Records
In 2001, Virgin Records, a record label, bought Mariah Carey out of her contract from Colombia Records for a record-breaking amount of 49 million dollars. This would be the label where Glitter is released under. At the time, this record deal was major, and still is considered one of the most expensive music acquisitions to date. Even though she had three album commitments left with Colombia, they ended up being compilation albums released throughout the course of six years.
Glitter, both the film and its soundtrack, had been in development since 1997. It was under the working title “All That Glitters”. The movie takes place in the 1980’s, and was partly inspired by the events of Carey’s early life. Naturally, Carey wanted the soundtrack album to sound like something from the 80’s. She enlisted legendary producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, DJ Clark Kent, and even Rick James to help produce songs off the album. Of course, the album also featured modern elements (like hip-hop, R&B, and even ballads).
The Matola Sabotage of “Loverboy” & the Jennifer Lopez of it All
Of course, Tommy Mottola had insider knowledge of this project, and wanted to make sure his ex-wife’s career would end for good. “Loverboy” was selected to be lead single off of Glitter. The original version of the song contained a sample of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s song “Firecracker”. However when Mottola got ahold of this information, he decided to perform an act of sabotage against Carey.
At that time singer and actress Jennifer Lopez had already achieved major music and movie success. Lopez had achieved top-ten singles like “If You Had My Love” and “Waiting For Tonight”. Though, Lopez, in mid-2001, was in the midst of rolling out her “J-Lo” album era. Hearing that Carey was set to sample “Firecracker”, Mottola quickly registered to use the song as well, creating Lopez’s song “I’m Real”, and adding it to the track list of J-Lo. Mottola made sure the song released before “Loverboy” to spoil her album roll out.
When Carey found out about this, her and the record producer of “Loverboy”, DJ “Clark Kent” had little time to scramble and remake the song. Kent and Carey settled on sampling Cameo’s 1986 classic song “Candy”. They even had the original members of Cameo come in and re-record their vocals, and even, no pun intended, make a cameo in the music video for “Loverboy”. As a song, “Loverboy” was released on June 19, 2001 as the lead single off of Glitter,
“Number Two”
When first released, it stalled on the Billboard Hot 100. That was until it jumped to number two, being blocked by “Bootylicious” by Destiny’s Child. This was also sabotage, as Colonbia Records purposely sent “Bootylicious” off to radio a week early to block “Loverboy”. In retaliation, Virgin Records discounted “Loverboy” to 69 cents. “Loverboy” became the only lead single by that point in Carey’s discography to not reach number one on the Hot 100. Although, it did become the best selling single of 2001 in the US.
It was also known news that Tommy Mottola would go into record and music stores and either pay or force employees to take Carey’s Glitter album displays out of their stores. Mottola would take CD’s of “Loverboy” off the shelves as well, to make sure the song would be not buyable. Carey isn’t his only victim, he’s had many others, including infamously Michael Jackson, calling him “the devil”.
The Matola Sabotage of Album Track “If We”, & the Jennifer Lopez (Again) of it All
A album track off Glitter titled “If We” featured rappers Ja Rule and Nate Dogg. When Mottola found out about the song, he called producer of “If We”, Irv Gotti, to make a song for Jennifer Lopez with Ja Rule. This was because Lopez’s “J-Lo” album era was slowly starting to die out. The song ended up being the “I’m Real (Murder Remix)”, which went number one in late 2001. And, was VERY controversial. Gotti himself even said in an interview that Mottola did it to “f***” with Carey and her album rollout.
“I Don’t Know Her”
This is why Carey said the famous words: “I don’t know her” anytime she gets asked about Lopez. Maybe because she genuinely doesn’t know her, but Lopez, I’m POSITIVE, knows much about Carey. When Lopez gets asked about Carey, she says she’s nice and thinks she’s talented. Carey remained unbothered, and also, unknown about Lopez or her character,
In Mariah Carey’s words from her 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey: “And after all of that s***, ‘Loverboy’ ended up being the best-selling song of 2001 in the United States, I’M REAL.“
The Emotional & Physical “Breakdown” of Mariah Carey
For promotion of “Loverboy”, Carey made a surprise appearance on MTV’s show “Total Request Live”. She opened her appearance by singing the chorus “Loverboy, come on and love me, give me MORE”, and proceeded to hand out ice cream and head next to Carson Daly, the host of TRL. Daly was meant to act fake shocked that Carey was there (even though it was a planned appearance), though he made it out to be on the live broadcast that he ACTUALLY had no idea what was going. He went as far as to “jokingly” say “Mariah Carey has lost her mind”. This would end up being used in the media to fuel the “Carey has lost her mind” narrative.
What people witnessed though, was a distraught and overwhelmed Mariah Carey, struggling to remain in one place due to being overworked. She “strips” off her t-shirt, then says the words to Daly: “Every now and then, someone needs a little therapy, and that day is today for me. You’re my therapy today Carson”. You could tell off her voice alone she was exhausted.
With more and more press for the album, Carey was reportedly getting only 2 hours of sleep a night for months and months. Every press junket featured some type of ranting style rambling from Carey, almost always ending up in her publicist taking the mic away from her. By now, the tabloids and media were always constantly reporting on Carey’s unusual behavior, and in words the “takedown” of Carey. They didn’t bother reporting on the “Loverboy” success nor the album or film, they wanted every bad story of her out there.
The “Hospitalization” of Mariah Carey
This all came crashing down in July 2001, when Mariah was hospitalized for an “emotional and physical breakdown”. Carey was escorted out of her home via ambulances and her mother calling the police. It was an intervention to get Carey some help. Therefore, press for the album and film was all put on hold. In her 2020 memoir, she revealed this was when she was diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder. Because of her hospitalization, Virgin Records pushed the album’s release date to the, for better words, very bad and poorly timed date of September 11, 2001, and the film a week later. This OBVIOUSLY went horribly wrong.
Just a fair warning, I will be talking about the September 11 attacks, reader discretion is advised if this is a sensitive topic to you.
The September 11, 2001 “Release Date”
Glitter was released on September 11, 2001, the day that the Twin Towers in New York City were hit by two hijacked planes. There is this very famous video of a billboard for the album and in the background is the Twin Towers burning, Carey said that she walked out of the mental health facility in shock and horror seeing the events in America. Therefore, she paused promotion that entire week.
Though, Carey did indirectly save a woman’s life. A woman named Sara Botkin worked in the South Tower of the Twin Towers. That morning when Carey dropped Glitter, Botkin was late to work because she stopped at Tower Records to buy the album. Therefore when she got to work, she didn’t make it too far into the building, when the North Tower was struck. Allowing her to quickly escape and evacuate the building.
When the film came out, Carey appeared on the red carpet for its premiere in a American Flag top, and she went onto multiple benefit TV specials to perform the ballad “Never Too Far” from Glitter. In fact, she did a medley version of “Never Too Far”, mashing it up with her iconic 1993 ballad “Hero” for the “Never Too Far/Hero” medley. All proceeds of this single went to the firefighters impacted by the September 11 attacks. “Never Too Far/Hero” made it to number 81 on the Hot 100.
The “Best”
For some background context, I became a fan of Carey’s in early 2026. Funny enough, I deep dove into her discography, after trying to find “Loverboy” on streaming services in March. I was confused like “What happened to Glitter?”. And that’s where I learned about this entire album era. As a loyal lamb, I waited until October 30 to hear the full album, so this is a raw reaction to this entire album, and my favorites upon first listening.
Loverboy is the first and last, interestingly, song on Glitter. This song is very straight-forward. Built off the main instrumental hook of “Candy” by Cameo, it’s a funk-pop song. Carey explains how she has a “lover” who satisfies her emotional and sexual desires. In “Loverboy”, she says: “I got myself a lover, who knows what I like…He’s all mine, and his loving makes me high, like a taste of ecstasy, all I need is him to be my lover”. Cameo re-recorded their iconic lines from “Candy” at the end of the song.
The remix version, the first track on Glitter, contains the rappers Ludacris, Da Brat, Shawnna, and Twenty II. It has new verses and shortens Carey and Cameo’s parts. And, we can’t forget about the original “Firecracker” sample version. That one is a lot slower than the Cameo-sample version, though still a banger. I’m glad she threw it onto the 25th anniversary of the album finally. Overall, this song is a BANGER, the solo version is the BEST, and I love it so much. Definitely a top Mariah song.
Carey “Leads the Way” on Glitter
Lead The Way is the second track off Glitter. An emotional ballad, Carey describes the feeling of letting go of personal control, and letting love “lead the way”. She says: “I found myself reborn the day I met you”. Her vocals on this song alone are STELLAR, and among her best in her discography. For the 25th anniversary of Glitter, Carey dropped the original 1997 demo version of the song. This song gives me goosebumps, it’s just that good. Upon first listen, I was shocked. Definitely a must-listen on this album
Didn’t Mean To Turn You On is the fourth track on Glitter. It’s a cover of Cherrelle’s song of the same name released in 1984, and produced by the same people, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. A disco-pop song, it describes the feeling of Carey begging for someone to understand she doesn’t want to get with someone. Carey complimented the cover with her vocals. She says: “Let you take me home, I knew what you were all about, but when I did, I wasn’t trying to lead you on”. She’s obviously annoyed that this man keeps persisting on with getting with her. It was the first song released in 2026 for the 25th anniversary, and even got re-imagined with singer Rochelle Jordan. Definitely a club banger, and most certainly among the most 80’s sounding songs on this album.
Carey Can’t Stop “Funkin’ For Jamaica” on Glitter
Don’t Stop (Funkin’ 4 Jamaica) is the fifth song on Glitter. It features rapper Mystikal. The song contains a sample of “Funkin for Jamaica (N.Y.)”, a song released in 1980 as a jazz-R&B song by trumpeter Tom Browne, and vocals by Toni Smith. She just describes the feeling of not wanting to stop dancing with another person. Additionally, it describes “letting loose” for Jamaica, an ode to the neighborhood in Queens, New York. Mystikal adds personality by adding rapping-shout verses to the song. At times, Mystikal is distracting, but ignoring him this song is a bop. She says: “Don’t stop ba-bee, it’s ecs-ta-sy”. She exaggerates those lines throughout the song. It’s a banger, and a highlight on the album overall.
All My Life is the sixth song off Glitter. A R&B-pop-disco song written by the iconic 80’s singer Rick James, it describes the feeling of letting loose because she finally feels love that Carey’s been wanting “all my life”. She says: “You and only you, can make me feel the way I do”. It’s also among the most 1980’s-sounding songs. This was the second song released for the 25th anniversary of Glitter, notably remixed by DJ Channel Tres. Definitely a highlight on the album.
The Ending of Glitter is, Sadly, “Never Too Far Away”
Never Too Far is the tenth song on Glitter. An emotional ballad, and the second single off the album, it describes the feeling of heartbreak, emotional healing, and finding the courage to open up and love again after pain. Carey says: “Too painful to talk about it, so I hold it in, so my heart can mend and be brave enough to love again”. Again, Mariah’s vocals on this song are TOP NOTCH. And, this song is again definitely among some of the best vocal takes in Carey’s discography. “Never Too Far” was a notable mash-up with her 1993 ballad “Hero”, for 9/11 tribute live performances. Overall, this song is amazing, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves emotional Mariah Carey.
The Erasure of Glitter
When initially released, Glitter received lukewarm reviews from critics, many taking note of Carey’s attempt at making 1980’s disco and pop music, and infusing it with modern day elements. Many said it wasn’t good, though, Rolling Stone gave it a 3/5 stars and said it was a “step in the right direction” for Carey. People also brushed off Glitter due to the trend of not liking Carey, and the fact that America was in shambles, so barely anyone cared about a new Mariah Carey album. Glitter debuted and peaked at number seven, and fell off the chart quickly.
The movie was also EXTREMELY panned by critics. They made fun of Carey’s acting, the VERY predictable plot lines of the movie, and the soundtrack. Notably, the movie is missing from streaming services. When I say Carey wanted Glitter erased from history and her discography, I truly do mean it.
The Return, and Emancipation of “MimI”
After Virgin Records dropped Mariah from their label in late 2001, she signed with Island Records. In 2002, she dropped her majorly unsuccessful album Charmbracelet. The lead single “Through the Rain”, in a turn of events, only made it to number 81 on the Hot 100. Eventually, Carey made a successful comeback into the music industry with her 2005 project The Emancipation of Mimi featuring the number-one hits “We Belong Together”, and “Don’t Forget About Us”. “We Belong Together” ended up being the number one song of the 2000’s. No Tommy Mottola, you did not successfully ruin your ex-wife’s music career, as you thought you did.
“#JusticeForGlitter”
Though in 2018, as always, a trend started on social media. Many “lambs” (Carey’s fans) went back and dug up Glitter and began buying the album off of iTunes. Lambs began sharing the hashtag “#justiceforglitter” on Twitter (X), and got it trending to the top of popular topics on the platform. Carey infamously ignored or rarely mentioned the album at that point, due to it being such a negative time in her life.
That was until she started seeing the newfound love for it via the fans and the media. It is also to be noted that Glitter was absent from any streaming service up to that point.
It was all through iTunes, that the album went onto reach number one on the US iTunes albums chart in November 2018. Many publications reported on the resurgence, and re-reviewed Glitter, some saying Carey was ahead of her time, and it was a solid effort to make 1980’s sounding music.
The “Glitter Medley” on the Caution Tour in 2018
During her Caution Tour for her 2018 album Caution, Carey went back and added a section in to the setlist of Glitter songs, including “Loverboy”. Carey thanked fans for allowing Glitter to be loved and appreciated finally, and the album was added to streaming services in 2020, along with the unreleased “Firecracker” version of “Loverboy” on her compilation album The Rarities. Though the album was taken off in early 2026, for the deluxe edition preparation. For the deluxe 2026 release, she also remastered the “Loverboy” video in 4K resolution, and put it onto streaming and her official YouTube channel.
The “Overall”
This album was most certainly worth the wait. Glitter was definitely a fun listen, and I think overall she did the job correctly on making 1980’s inspired music for the accompanying film. It was a little bit unorganized, I will say, and it is a ROLLER COASTER of emotions (no pun intended, if you know, you know). The features can also get annoying in some sections of the album as well. For example, how did we get from Loverboy to Lead The Way….
Regardless of it’s background context, I’m so happy that this album is finally being appreciated months later. While it’s definitely not Carey’s best album, it was a solid effort, and deserves praise. For this, I would give Glitter a solid 7/10. Hopefully Loverboy can blow up on social media, but I’m so happy for Carey anyway. Glitter is the shimmery, messy, and emotional album it was marketed to be, and actually perfect for the movie it was made for. Let Mariah lead the way, and listen to Glitter (Deluxe Edition).
