Still a star, but a dimmer shine

Who could blame Mariah Carey for just wanting to have fun Monday at the Universal Amphitheatre?

She’s weathered enough setbacks in the last two years to give five pop divas fodder for hankie-soaking “Oprah” visits: a flop movie and album (“Glitter”), a full-on nervous breakdown, the indignity of a record label paying $28 million for her not to record another album for it.

As if the circus motif on the curtain draping the stage Monday wasn’t enough, Carey told the packed house, “It’s all about having a good time -- that’s all we’re trying to do.”

Her latest album, “Charmbracelet,” has sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. That hasn’t put Carey back on the pop throne she commanded as the top-selling female musician of the ‘90s, but it has at least given her something to smile about after “Glitter.”

On tour for the first time since her fairy-tale life turned pop nightmare, the 33-year-old singer was all smiles and gratitude Monday, thanking fans who stuck with her “through thick and thin, through ups and downs.”

Such cliches are echoed in songs she’s written from her experience on fame’s dark side. She invoked the kind of specifics that can give a song weight in “Clown,” which dishes back at Eminem -- “Your ego’s overblown.... you’re just a puppet show” -- some of what the rapper dissed at her in “Superman” on his album “The Eminem Show.”

Too often, though, Carey settled for “hold on to your dreams, never let go” platitudes.

Such sentiments, like those little “Daily Affirmations” booklets, obviously resonate with her legion of adoring fans but fall well short of revealing artistry.

Further, the melismatic vocal style that she inherited from Whitney Houston and then amplified to the nth degree may have launched 1,000 “American Idol” contestants, but it still merely draws attention to itself rather than illuminating what she’s s-i-i-i-yi-yi-ee-ee-inging.

Despite drafting hip-hop stars on “Charmbracelet” and teaming with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Carey can’t keep pace with such trendsetters as Ashanti and Beyonce Knowles, whose fresher beats and production point up how comparatively old school Carey’s up-tempo numbers sound.

The upshot of Monday’s performance, intentional or not, was simple reassurance that she has come out of a dark tunnel into the light, but on the same side she entered -- her divahood, extraordinary vocal cords and glamorous image none the worse for the wear.

Perhaps one day she’ll consider leaving home the semi-trailer’s worth of wardrobe changes, racks of stage lights, elaborate sets and 11 dancers and just come out and sing. Now that might be fun.

*

Mariah Carey

Where: Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City.

When: Thursday, 8:15 p.m.

Price: $35-$85.

Contact: (818) 777-3931.