Mariah Carey is still eager to release her long-hidden grunge album, which she recorded in the 1990s.
The 55-year-old pop icon experimented with an alternative sound in 1995, stepping away from her usual musical style, but the album never saw the light of day. Mariah recently expressed her frustration over the project being buried for so long during an appearance on the *Las Culturistas* podcast. When host Matt Rogers asked if she could release the grunge album, she responded: "I know, right? I'm so mad that I haven't done that yet... but who do I drop it with?"
Rogers suggested she could release it independently using tools like "Garage Band or something, like a grungy thing," to which Mariah replied: "I could do that."
She continued: "It’s a good album. OK, you will hear it. I was really feeling it, seriously. It had its jokes too, and those jokes still hold up."
Mariah first revealed the existence of this alternative album during a 2020 interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, where she explained that record executives at the time had prevented its release. She recalled: "I got in trouble for making this album—the alternative album—because back then, everything was super-controlled by the powers that be. I wasn't thinking about releasing it, but later I thought, 'I should release it, maybe under an alias.' But that idea was shut down."
Titled *Somebody's Ugly Daughter*, the album was eventually released under the band name Chick, with Mariah's friend Clarissa Dane as the lead vocalist. Mariah provided backing vocals and was credited under the alias D. Sue. However, the original recordings featuring Mariah on lead vocals are believed to still exist.
In her 2020 memoir, *The Meaning of Mariah Carey*, she described the project: "I was experimenting with the style of breezy grunge, punk-light female singers who were popular at the time. You know, the ones who seemed so carefree with their emotions and image—angsty, messy, wearing old shoes and wrinkled slips—while every move I made was so calculated and polished. I wanted to break free, let loose, and express my misery, but also have fun and laugh."
