POP MUSIC REVIEW : The Agony and the Artistry : Mariah Carey proves more appealing in her fourth tour stop than she has the last three years on record.

The only thing Mariah Carey had more of than hits on Tuesday at the Universal Amphitheatre was problems.

During the bumpy, 90-minute concert, Carey displayed signs of inexperience in everything from her clumsy dance steps to her awkward manner.

You could count on nervous giggles after almost every word between songs and melodramatic gestures with every lyric. Every time she sang the word you , she pointed to the audience. When she sang heart , she thumped her chest.

But what should we have expected from a 24-year-old singer who is trying to start her performance career amid the coldness and high expectations of arenas and amphitheaters rather than in the intimacy of clubs, a singer’s normal training ground?

So her fourth stop on her first U.S. tour was a disaster, right?

That’s the irony.

After months of media doubts about whether Carey, who has sold more than 10 million records over the last three years without ever touring, could hold her own on stage, the young New Yorker proved more appealing on stage Tuesday than she has the last three years on record.

Carey’s imperfections, in fact, contributed to making her more human and winning on stage than on record, where she tries to achieve such perfection with her exquisite vocal range and command that the tracks frequently seem sterile.

If she is able at the end of this six-city tour to look honestly at her problem areas, she has a chance to become far more engaging a performer than her pop rival Whitney Houston, who after considerable touring remains unbearably stiff.

The first thing she needs to do in thinking about future concerts is forget that she has sold 10 million records. This show--with the lavish, cityscape stage design and its small army of seven musicians, five dancers and five back-up singers--was far too grand.

The challenge for Carey, whose music combines elements of gospel and soul, is to connect with audiences, not be surrounded by so many competing visual and musical elements that you often have trouble even locating her on stage. The best way to develop those performance skills would be schedule some club or small-theater shows before launching another full-scale arena tour.

Eager to prove that her vocal power isn’t simply a studio trick, Carey opened with hits that showed off those considerable skills. And she did showcase everything from husky dips to glistening peaks that would endanger any crystal glass.

But it wasn’t until “Without You,” about 20 minutes into the set, that Carey moved from vocal demonstrations to vocal artistry, injecting the old Badfinger torch ballad with a genuine sense of urgency and passion.

As she went back to her own songs, Carey seemed to carry over that freer vocal expression, eliminating some of the embroidery that sometimes undercuts the warmth of the records.

Those Carey tunes (she writes most of the lyrics and some of the music), however, pose another problem. At this point in her career, she is stronger as a singer than as a writer. Her lyrics tend to speak about heartache and longing in ways that are too commonplace.

As such, they fail to give her enough character and color musically to sustain a 90-minute set. After the first 45 minutes, the material tended to blur, leaving her somewhat anonymous on stage.

By contrast, two other outside songs--including her hit version of the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There”--brought out the best in her singing and personality. Though it’s hard to divide one’s artistic impulses, Carey needs to look at her own material more critically, even if that means turning more frequently to other people’s songs.

This tour should do much to give Carey (who stars in an NBC-TV special tonight at 10) greater credibility in pop, but it’s how she adjusts to its lessons--and problems--that will tell us how serious she is about her artistry, rather than simply her stardom.