The Most Disastrous Albums of All Time
The Most Disastrous Album Ever!
Mariah Carey
Glitter
Virgin, 2001
BEFORE
The diva of the '90s, the pre-Glitter Carey sold 140 million albums and singles. In 2001, she signed a four-album deal with Virgin worth an estimated $80 million.
"HOPE YOU LIKE MY NEW DIRECTION!"
That contract first bore fruit with Glitter, the '80s-style soundtrack to the film of the same name in which Carey starred. But before either came out, the singer began to unravel. In July 2001, Carey appeared on MTV's Total Request Live, read a note from her mother to host Carson Daly and prevented him from cutting to commercial. She later wrote on her Web site: "If anybody gets this that really cares, just do me a favor, close down the management company that I own… I need a break."
Later that day, Carey checked herself into Silver Hill, a "recovery clinic" in New Canaan, Connecticut, for what her management called an "emotional and physical breakdown." She canceled all her promotional plans, and Glitter's release date was delayed until September 11, 2001 — the worst day in history to release anything.
The $22 million film, which the Village Voice called "infinitely mockable," grossed a meager $5 million. The album also sold well below expectations, and Virgin-EMI chief Ken Berry was fired soon after.
AFTER
Virgin dropped Carey at the beginning of 2002, but in addition to the $21 million she was paid for Glitter, she received another $28 million in severance pay for her troubles. She bounced back mightily, as all good divas do, with her ninth studio album, 2005's multiplatinum Emancipation of Mimi.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
"On a quantitative level, you can make the case for it being the most disastrous album of all time," Moby says. "It makes the idea of the Sex Pistols being paid £30,000 to leave EMI [in 1977] look like child's play."
