The Not-So-Big Hit Single

Don’t cry for Mariah Carey.

The pop diva might have been rudely dumped by Virgin Records, but she walks away with almost as much money ($49 million) as some of those Enron executives.

And everyone knows rival labels are lining up to sign the Long Island native with a low-ball offer, knowing that she needs desperately to reestablish herself after her recent album and movie flops. Billy Crystal scored one of the biggest laughs of 2001 when he used “Glitter” as the butt of a joke during “The Concert for New York City,” the Sept. 11-related benefit concert.

Setting everyone up by suggesting the country needs to pull together, Crystal said, “Whether we are Christians or Jews or Muslims, we all have to agree on one thing ... we can never, ever again let Mariah Carey make another movie.”

Truthfully, Crystal would have been just as on target by saying, “We can never, ever again let Mariah Carey put together another tour.”

How bad was the movie “Glitter,” which cast her in the apparently too challenging role of a pop diva?

I didn’t see “Glitter,” and judging from the box office receipts, neither did you. But I did see Carey’s concert at Staples Center in the spring of 2000, and it was the most vacuous show by a major pop-music figure I’ve ever attended. You’ll see more imaginative staging concepts at middle-school talent shows.

The bad movie and the bad tour are no surprise.

For all her record sales, Carey has never been a very satisfying artist. Carey is blessed with one of the great voices in modern pop, with a range that stretches across octaves, but she has shown little imagination in the use of it.

The only reason record companies are interested in her is that she has sold more than 40 million albums in the U.S., but those sales figures shouldn’t be used to persuade us that she’s a visionary talent, as some of her supporters try to do.

Their favorite figure is that she has more No. 1 singles (15) than anyone since the Beatles (20) and Elvis Presley (18).

On the list of meaningless pop statistics, that’s No. 1 with a bullet.

Carey has mastered the art of the No. 1 record in an anonymous pop age--one in which No. 1 records carry only a fraction of the musical character and cultural impact that they did in earlier decades.

Her fans make much of the fact that Carey’s teaming with Boyz II Men on “One Sweet Day” in 1995 spent more weeks at No. 1 (16) than any other record in the ‘90s.

They might not be so quick to suggest that’s a sign of excellence if they realized what record had the second-longest run at No. 1 in the ‘90s: Los Del Rio’s “Macarena.”

One way to put the cultural importance of a No. 1 single these days into perspective is to realize that Elvis and the Beatles aren’t the leaders in that category. Bing Crosby, the crooner who topped the charts in the ‘30s and ‘40s, had nearly as many No. 1 pop singles than those two combined: 36.

The reason Crosby’s figures aren’t counted by record chart researchers today is because he recorded in a different era--and the cultural impact of being No. 1 was different.

The “modern” pop era began with the birth of rock ‘n’ roll in the mid-’50s, and all statistics today pretty much reflect what has happened since then. But one could argue that another dividing line needs to be drawn in terms of pop charts. Conditions in the record business are as different now from the days of Presley and the Beatles as their day was from Crosby’s.

Comparing statistics from the different eras is as tricky as trying to compare Babe Ruth’s and Barry Bonds’ home run marks.

During the rock ‘n’ roll revolution in the ‘50s, singles were the main focus of teenage record buyers. They were more affordable--you could buy four or five singles for the price of an album--and it was a lot more fun having all those 45s than an album that might have one hit song and a lot of filler.

The prominence of albums didn’t begin in earnest until the arrival of Bob Dylan and the Beatles in the ‘60s, when fans started having faith in the artist’s ability to deliver an entire album of good work. From that time on, the primary purpose of singles has been to sell albums by exposing the music on radio. The Beatles felt so confident about their music and their popularity by 1967 that they didn’t ever release a U.S. single from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Another change has been radio formats. In the early days of rock, most young music fans listened to Top 40 radio stations that played a broad range of music, picking the strongest cuts from rock and country, R&B; and pop. That meant you could hear Presley, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Frank Sinatra on the same station. Because the stations appealed to such a broad range of fans, it was possible to build a national consensus when it came to No. 1 records. Who alive in 1956 didn’t hear “Don’t Be Cruel” or “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in 1964 or “Hey Jude” in 1968?

Today, radio formats have been broken into narrow categories--country, urban, adult contemporary, alt/college rock, modern rock, classic rock and so on. As a result, we don’t all hear the same music anymore.

There are still mainstream pop stations, but they don’t show nearly the same openness to a broad range of sounds that their forerunners did. Country and hard rock, for instance, are not generally welcome on these mainstream formats. There are many No. 1 records each week, one in each format. But there is no longer that consensus choice for a No. 1 hit that everyone celebrates.

The result: Singles can become No. 1 some weeks by selling as few as 15,000 copies.

Records are ranked on the charts not just by sales, but also by the amount of radio airplay they receive--and record companies spend a fortune trying to influence stations to play their releases.

Between promotional pressure and stations’ desperation to hook listeners, the last factor considered is whether the record is any good. You get an idea of how flimsy a No.1 single can be when you realize Paula Abdul and Milli Vanilli had nine No.1 singles between them between 1988 and 1991.

Some great records have reached No. 1 in recent years, including Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart,” TLC’s “Waterfalls” and Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Most No. 1 singles, however, have gotten there because they are anonymous.

Can you even name the performers of these ‘90s No. 1 hits? “I’ll Be Your Everything” (No. 1 for one week in 1990), “Love Takes Time” (two weeks in 1990), “The First Time” (two weeks in 1991), “Here Comes the Hotstepper” (two weeks in 1994), “Always Be My Baby” (two weeks in 1996) and “Too Close” (five weeks in 1998).

One hint: two of them were by Carey.

Good luck.

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