* VH1 DIVAS LIVE

(Epic)

Here's Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Shania Twain, Gloria Estefan, Celine Dion, all in concert. Plus a guest appearance by Carole King, who joins Dion singing "The Reason." As the solidest sender in today's pop -- powerful in songs of excitation like "River Deep, Mountain High" and sturdy in "My Heart Will Go On," the sentimental dreamsong in which she sings romance larger than life -- Dion provides the CD's most credible diva moments. And Shania Twain, transcending the lightweight pop of "You're Still the One," powers "Man! I Feel like a Woman" with all the force a diva must summon.

But the rest of these 14 performances fall flat, and worse. At least Carey's aimless technicalities and Estefan's uninspired disco merely disappoint their slim reputations. Aretha Franklin stumbles grotesquely, almost clownishly, through "Chain of Fools," bumbling aside the bird-boned Mariah Carey. And wouldn't you know that when the song finishes, the other divas shout, "All hail the queen of soul!" As if they were reading Franklin's epitaph.

-- Michael Freedberg