Today marks the 21st anniversary of Mariah Carey’s ‘Glitter‘ album.
As the soundtrack for a movie set in the 1980s, the album was heavily retro-inspired and also sampled a number of ’80s hits.
The lead single ‘Loverboy’ was the best-selling single of 2001 in the US, and peaked at #2. The original version of ‘Loverboy’, using a sample from Yellow Magic Orchestra’s ‘Firecracker’, was included on Mariah’s 2020 release ‘The Rarities‘, and the reason the sample had to be changed to Cameo’s ‘Candy’ is discussed in the memoir ‘The Meaning of Mariah Carey‘.
The ballad ‘Lead The Way’, which was written during the ‘Butterfly’ sessions, notably marks Mariah’s last known collaboration with longtime songwriting partner, Walter Afanasieff.
The album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Soundtrack chart in the US, and peaked at #7 on the Billboard 200 chart. It peaked at #1 in Japan, and charted within the Top 20 in most major music markets. It has sold over three million copies worldwide.
Music videos were produced for ‘Loverboy’, ‘Loverboy Remix’, ‘Never Too Far’, ‘Don’t Stop (Funkin’ 4 Jamaica)’ and ‘Last Night a DJ Saved My Life’.
A social media campaign called #JusticeForGlitter took off in November 2018, and the ‘Glitter’ album soared to the top of the iTunes charts in a number of countries, including the US. It re-entered Billboard’s Soundtracks chart at #14, and also topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Catalog Albums chart. The unforeseen success of the album over a decade later prompted Mariah to include a Glitter medley as part of her Caution World Tour in 2019.
In May 2020, the ‘Glitter’ soundtrack was made available on streaming services worldwide for the first time ever. Mariah marked the occasion by temporarily changing her Twitter name to ‘Billie Frank’, her character in the ‘Glitter’ film.
Listen to ‘Glitter’ on Spotify:
“Mariah Carey’s Top 40 biggest singles on the Official Chart”. Official Charts Company. Archived from the original on November 16, 2018. Retrieved November 16, 2018 .