Mariah Carey performs during the opening of her U.S. tour in Miami, Florida August 5, 2006. REUTERS/Marc Serota (UNITED STATES)

Somewhere along the line, someone in the highest echelons of the music business apparently told Mariah Carey that a tight red jewel-encrusted leotard with a lampshade-style fringe-skirt was a great idea.

The so-bad-it's-good diva act tends to work best when a costume is genuinely imaginative, it fits spectacularly, and the star is in on the joke (Cher, Madonna). Carey, on the other hand, seems to have no idea how ridiculous her progressively more tawdry array of bedtime attire has become -- and how sadly it all detracts from the things she does well. After all, she can actually sing.

Carey's 2005 "The Emancipation of Mimi" was a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum chart-topper through which she reclaimed her career while displaying a level of authority that had eluded her in recent years.

Yet onstage Saturday night during the first show of her new concert tour at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, her message to fans seemed to have almost nothing do with "emancipation" or "strength" or "growth" -- or any of the token buzzwords associated with a woman who has recently broken free from whatever it was that was keeping her down.

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