Mariah on Tour: Glitter but No Gold

Mariah Carey’s sold-out concert Thursday at Staples Center, the opening U.S. stop on her first tour in seven years, brought to mind an old math rule: Anything multiplied by zero equals zero.

In an energetic two-hour performance, Carey tried to create a dazzling pop spectacle along the lines of winning tours by Madonna and Ricky Martin--like them, frequently approaching the songs as action-filled video sketches rather than simply traditional concert numbers.

But her efforts generally lacked the stylish sophistication of Madonna or the convincing passion of Martin. The tour that came to mind most frequently was Cher’s recent extravaganza--an exercise in vacuousness that I hoped wouldn’t be repeated in my lifetime.

Ambitious staging times zero imagination equals . . . well, you do the math.

Should we be surprised?

Carey’s pop statistics have been remarkable:

* She’s the only artist to have a No. 1 hit in each year of the ‘90s.

* She’s had more No. 1 singles (14) than anyone other than the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

* She’s sold more than 125 million records worldwide.

Yet Carey has never been a truly satisfying artist.

It’s telling that she won a Grammy in 1990 for best new artist, but hasn’t won one since--even though her mainstream style and high-media profile is tailor-made for success in the conservative world of Grammy voters.

Carey is blessed with one of the great voices of the modern pop era, and she demonstrated her gift Thursday with a few showstopping notes. But she hasn’t grown as a writer or vocalist after her early success.

Instead, she has tended to follow in the path of the post-”Thriller” Michael Jackson, delivering music that seems more product than craft. The themes are generally superficial statements of romantic tension or celebration, and the music leans on radio-friendly aspects of mainstream pop, R&B; and hip-hop.

The surprise, given her instinct for the marketplace, is that Carey got through the ‘90s without doing a country duet with Garth Brooks or--to cite someone with an equally empty but successful approach--Shania Twain.

To her credit, it was a very different Carey that took the stage Thursday than the last time she toured here in 1993.

At that time, Carey, still in her early 20s, was so inexperienced in front of a live audience that you could count on nervous giggles after almost every word between songs and on melodramatic gestures accompanying every lyric.

In returning to the stage for this 18-city world tour, which began last month in Belgium, Carey is more in control. She avoids the giggles and has considerably toned down the arm flailing. She has a likable, eager-to-please presence, but still has little sense of dynamics as she moves about the stage and, surprisingly, exudes minimal charisma.

Her fans love her, however, and she rewards them with all sorts of concert extras. She supplemented the music Thursday with lots of costume changes, enough dancers to fill a couple of minivans, stuffed animals (a bear that she hugged), real animals (lambs that she kissed), guests from the audience (kids who took their picture with her) and guests from backstage (rappers Da Brat, the night’s opening act, and Krayzie Bone).

The evening opened on an encouraging note: a pre-taped video segment in which the “sweet” Mariah is stalked and eventually attacked by her “evil” twin Bianca. But any hopes for the segment soon faded, thanks to a hapless concept that included tedious cameos by a “something-for-everyone” cast ranging from Jerry Springer and Ozzy Osbourne to Joan Rivers and the kid from the Pepsi commercials. The only reason Darva Conger probably wasn’t included was that she was busy taping “Larry King Live.”

The “rivalry” between Mariah and Bianca later ended with a mock boxing match that was also astonishingly humorless.

Musically, Carey is most effective when she sticks closest to a vigorous, hip-hop beat on songs such as “Heartbreaker,” though she seems to feel most at home on the sweeping power ballads, such as the message-heavy, but fuzzy “Petals” and “Can’t Take That Away,” a tale of struggle and self-affirmation that she identifies with so strongly that she subtitles it “Mariah’s Theme.”

In the latter numbers, Carey--backed by a five-piece band and four vocalists--makes it clear that she identifies strongly with the underdog and that she yearns to inspire young people to pursue their dreams. It’s the optimism that led her to name her latest album, “Rainbow.”

Carey seemed so moved by “Petals,” a story about childhood confusion and loss, that she shed a few tears during the song.

Cynics might say the tears were a convenient bit of the video/theatrical design--the way Michael Jackson, too, seemed to sob night after night in the same spot on tour. Fans will defend the tears as an honest expression of emotion.

Whatever, the challenge of an artist is to make us feel the emotions, not just show us hers on a video screen. After a decade of hits, Carey, the artist, is still all too often at ground zero.

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Robert Hilburn, The Times’ pop music critic, can be reached by e-mail at robert.hilburn@latimes.com.