New Label Hopes That Carey Pays Diva-dends

For the first time in months, the record industry is looking to Mariah Carey for more than the next tabloid headline.

Hospitalized amid a personal meltdown and dumped by her label, the diva returns to the pop chart’s top 10 today. But whether her sales will justify her superstar paycheck remains to be seen.

“Charmbracelet,” Carey’s first album for Universal Music Group’s Island Def Jam division, sold an estimated 240,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan data, ranking a respectable, though not dazzling, No. 3 behind country stars Shania Twain and Tim McGraw.

Universal, a division of Vivendi Universal, signed Carey to an estimated $20-million, three-album contract this year, four months after she was dropped by British music giant EMI Group. The embarrassing dismissal came shortly after her semiautobiographical film and soundtrack, “Glitter,” flopped last fall. And the singer has been privately criticized by label executives for meandering between pop and hip-hop audiences while losing ground with both.

Now, the star and her new label are about to find out whether months of personal and professional refurbishing have paid off.

Music executives say the jury is still out on whether Universal will turn a profit on the deal, even though it has paid her far less than the $80 million guaranteed by EMI.

“It’s too soon to tell,” said attorney John Branca, who represents such stars as Epic’s Michael Jackson and Island Def Jam’s Ja Rule.

So far, Carey’s first new song, the ballad “Through the Rain,” has barely cracked radio’s top 40 around the country.

The album also faces stiff competition at record stores, where it is competing with a flood of other superstar releases, including the latest album from Universal’s Twain, who remains the top-selling artist in the nation this week. Twain’s album “Up!,” which debuted three weeks ago, had first week sales of more than 800,000 copies.

Still, Carey can claim something of a personal triumph: Universal executives say the chart figures appear to represent the second-best debut of her career, behind “Rainbow” in 1999.

Lyor Cohen, the former rap entrepreneur who now heads Universal’s Island Def Jam Music Group, said: “I’m not fixated on first week, even though this first week has shocked the industry naysayers. I still know bringing Mariah back into the same status as she was before doesn’t happen in one week. There are many more weeks to go, and I’m up to the challenge.”

Rival executives who had competed for Carey when she was dropped by EMI estimated that Universal would have to sell about 9 million copies of this and other Carey albums to break even on its deal. “It’s an expensive project. Her next single will have to be a breakthrough if this is going to be financially sound,” said one competitor.

For its part, Universal insisted it would turn a profit after selling far fewer copies.

Universal has orchestrated a series of laid-back appearances designed to present Carey as personable, executives said. The campaign has included stops on Oprah Winfrey’s TV program, an interview on “Dateline NBC,” an MTV special and a live performance today on NBC’s “Today” show to be broadcast from the Mall of America.

Cohen said the label had begun pushing Carey’s next single, a faster tempo song, to hip-hop stations in addition to pop format stations. Some radio programmers, however, say they remain leery of Carey’s past efforts to cross into hip-hop.

“Sometimes when you go too far in a certain direction ... it’s a risk,” said John Ivey, program director of Los Angeles pop powerhouse KIIS-FM (102.7). “It’s like seeing Carrot Top do “Hamlet.’ Nice try, but not what I’m looking for.”

Nonetheless, Ivey likes “Through the Rain” quite a bit and is bucking the national trend by playing the song frequently. Carey’s ballad received 46 spins last week at KIIS-FM, making it the No. 6 song on the station, according to tracking service Nielsen BDS.

If Ivey is on to something -- and the album develops into a hit -- Universal can claim bragging rights over EMI, which dropped Carey after just one album. EMI subsequently sacked the chief of its record division and later agreed to pay about $30 million to Carey to buy out her contract rather than release another record.

EMI officials declined to discuss Carey’s album. But in a recent interview, David Munns, vice chairman of EMI’s music division, said, “I can’t imagine any circumstance in the future where we would regret the decision we made.”

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Charmed?

The debut of Mariah Carey’s first Universal album, ‘Charmbracelet,’ ranks high among her works.

Debut week sales (in thousands):

Rainbow (1999): 323

Charmbracelet (2002): 240*

Butterfly (1997): 235

Daydream (1995):224

Music Box (1993): 174

Emotions (1992): 129

Glitter (2001): 116

Sources: Nielsen SoundScan, Universal Music Group