Mariah Carey's secret 1995 alt-rock album may finally enter the spotlight
Columbia Records buried the lore-heavy project (and Carey's involvement), clearly not realizing it was a badass, grungy seed
Despite being synonymous with the literal spirit of Christmas today, Mariah Carey didn’t always stay the pop-princess, radio-friendly course. If you’re thinking “I’ll believe it when I see it,” now actually may be the perfect moment: it appears Carey stands to bring one of her most subversive works to the public after almost 30 years, a project her label purposefully tried to bury. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Carey reveals she’s found a version of the mythical 1995 alt-rock album she once believed lost, and has plans to release it to the public.
“We actually have it,” Carey says of the unearthed version of Someone’s Ugly Daughter. In 1995, after Columbia Records buried Carey’s involvement in the project, the album was released using overlaid vocals by Carey’s friend Clarissa Dane, using the band name Chick. The original demos, however, were all sung by Carey, in a style she describes as “a girls’ Green Day group moment.”
“This was my outlet, and nobody knew about it,” Carey tells interviewer Brian Hiatt. “I honestly wanted to put the record out back then…and let them discover that it was me, but that idea was squashed.”
Though Carey is stalwart in her belief the album “will be heard,” she’s also open to some collaboration. Carey hints in the same interview that she’s also working on a retooled version of the project with another artist—either way, she wants fans to hear it. After all, this is a quest Carey has been publicly undertaking since at least 2021. Back then, she shared an excerpt from her memoir detailing the recording process for Someone’s Ugly Daughter, which occurred in congruence with her sessions for Daydream.
“I was playing with the style of the breezy-grunge, punk-light white female singers who were popular at the time. You know the ones who seemed to be so carefree with their feelings and their image,” Carey writes. “They could be angry, angsty, and messy, with old shoes, wrinkled slips, and unruly eyebrows, while every move I made was so calculated and manicured. I wanted to break free, let loose, and express my misery—but I also wanted to laugh.”