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She Still Believes
Lorraine Ali 12/6/2002 12:00:00 AM
Music: Singing Outside The Box
Lorraine Ali
A Date With Destiny

But the story is real, and continues to unfold. Destiny's Child's new album, "Survivor," debuted at the top of the charts last week, selling more copies in one week than any other album by a female group of the last decade. This amazing feat hardly produced a ripple in the music industry--such success has become a given for these young women. For the past month the group has been promoted with a daily two-hour band retrospective on MTV, heavy rotation of the "Survivor" video and ads for the first Total Request Live tour, which they will headline. "I just hope people don't get sick of us," says 19-year-old Knowles in a husky Texas drawl. "I'm sick of us, and I'm in Destiny's Child. There's such a thing as overexposure, but you just have to be selective in what you do. There has to be some mystery so people are excited when they see you."
Mariah On Fire

In the video for her new single, "Heartbreaker," Mariah Carey plays two parts. There's Good Mariah. She has blond hair and wears a pink T shirt. Bad Mariah has dark hair and long, red fingernails. Bad Mariah has stolen Good Mariah's boyfriend. The two women meet in the ladies' room and proceed to get into a very unladylike fight. They scratch, they kick, they pull each other's hair. Good Mariah wins. You could dismiss it as just a silly music-video gag. But when you sit down to listen to Mariah Carey's new album, "Rainbow," it's clear that musically, there are two Mariahs. Top-40 Mariah sings octave-soaring mainstream ballads. Hip-hop Mariah records with Master P and Snoop Dogg. She says those two Mariahs are at odds only when people try to categorize her music based on her skin color. "I'm very ambiguous-looking; I could be anything, really," Carey says. "Unless I had a sticker on that first album that said, 'Hi! My mom's Irish. My father is African-American and Venezuelan,' then there was going to be controversy."
Quiet Grrls

But if Lilith Fair is full of airy-fairy hoo-ha, then how has it become the most talked-about, anticipated and across-the-board embraced concert event of the year? Industry veterans are already blowing kisses. ""This is the first time women in rock music have been celebrated on tour, and that's exciting,'' says Gary Bongiovanni of the trade magazine Pollstar. Agents say tickets are outselling boy-dominated competitors like Lollapalooza (Tricky, Korn), H.O.R.D.E. (Neil Young, Beck) and R.O.A.R. (Iggy Pop, Bloodhound Gang). Hyperbolic rumors are flying: ""Did you hear D. A. Pennebaker [director of the 1967 Bob Dylan documentary, ""Don't Look Back''] is filming the second half of the tour?'' exclaimed one publicist. (As it turns out, he's not, but the promoters are negotiating a film deal.) Marty Diamond, a booking agent and one of McLachlan's ""money men,'' noticed the tide of good will last summer, during a round of practice shows. ""At the end of the night people were in each other's dressing room, goofing around,'' he says. ""The spirit of community was just . . . bizarre.'' Even artists who try to stay away from gender-specific projects are being won over. British songwriter Beth Orton asked to have the list of participants read to her. After she'd heard the names Cassan- dra Wilson, Emmylou Harris, Victoria Williams and two dozen others, there was dead silence. ""I'm sorry,'' she said, ""but that's brilliant.'' Lilith Fair offers something rare, even uncool: naked good intentions and unbridled sincerity. In the blockbust-er-packed, action-overloaded, marketing-ridden summertime, those qualities stick out even more. Lilith Fair has posed itself as a macho antidote, but it's something more: a thoughtful alternative. When Korn is turning up the angst and amplifiers on Lollapalooza, Jewel will be standing at Lilith Fair with an acoustic guitar, spilling out wordy, self-conscious ramblings about what a lousy, mean, uncaring, narcissistic society we are. While pink-chested beer-guzzlers elbow past people on their way to Lollapalooza's mosh pit, Lilith Fair attendees will be gaping at the stage in rapture, singing ardently with every word. Touchy-feely? Yes. Civilized, too. Moreover, the tour's financial success is bound to give female performers added clout in a business that continually marginalizes them. ""My last record came out at the same time as Tori Amos,'' says McLachlan. ""I was constantly getting pitted against her. Radio said, "We added Tori this week, so we can't add you.' They never said, "We added Pearl Jam, so we can't add Nirvana'.''
MUSIC
Out Of The Groove
Allison Samuels
The singer is best known for the explicit lyrics on last year's multiplatinum album "12 Play." The title of Kelly's wonderfully craven single "Bump and Grind" became a catch phrase in urban communities, and won the sensually bald singer a legion of female fans ready and willing to fluff his pillow. Now, with a self-titled album due out, the 28-year-old has love and death--as well as sex--on his brain. "The bump-and-grind period of my life was just a mood," he says. "I've been through a lot in the last two years and I've learned a lot about myself. You can't stay stuck in one groove."