Mariah Carey: Best Selling Female Artist of the Millennium. Five octave vocal range-commanding powerhouse vocalist of our generation. Underground alternative rock icon.
The “I’m That Chick” elusive chanteuse keeps dropping massive bombshells left and right about her life as featured in her upcoming memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey. And on Sunday (September 27), Mimi just happened to casually confirm that she recorded an entire alternative record, “just for laughs,” while making 1995’s Daydream.
“Fun fact: I did an alternative album while I was making Daydream ? Just for laughs, but it got me through some dark days. Here’s a little of what I wrote about it in #TheMeaningOfMariahCarey ? S/O to my friend Clarissa who performs the lead w/ me as a hidden layer #Chick #TMOMC,” she announced, along with an excerpt from her book.
“I’d bring my little alt-rock song to the band and hum a silly guitar riff. They would pick it up and we would record it immediately. It was irreverent, raw, and urgent, and the band got into it. I actually started to love some of the songs. I would fully commit to my character. 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. 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. I totally looked forward to doing my alter-ego band sessions after Daydream each night.”
To be clear: while Mariah was singing “Fantasy,” “One Sweet Day” and “Always Be My Baby” during the daytime, she was going full Courtney Love by night.
The backstory about the making of her Daydream alter-ego is already too much to handle, but no: she had to include a sample of the sound of her alternative album, too – and it is genuinely mind-blowing. That’s Mariah wailing across hazy guitars and crashing drums.
Further digging shows that the project, released under the name Chick, actually did get a release as an album in 1995 with Epic Records, and it’s called Someone’s Ugly Daughter. (The album art is also in Mariah’s teaser.)
The album’s long since out of print and, of course, not on streaming, but there are samples of each track up on AllMusic and at least two music videos online, including Chick’s cover of Cheap Trick‘s “Surrender,” which was uploaded onto YouTube years ago.
The Lambily is just now finding everything and freaking out.
To be fair, there have been hints about the record and her secret rock inclinations along the way: about a decade ago, it was revealed that Mariah nearly provided guest vocals on Hole’s Nobody’s Daughter.
While I’m trying my best to avoid any further Meaning of Mariah spoilers before it arrives, she is simply making it too damn hard with each new headline-making revelation.
It goes without saying, but just in case she’s unclear about the public demand: we absolutely need Chick’s Someone’s Ugly Daughter – otherwise known as Me. I Am Punkriah…The Elusive Rockeuse – reissued immediately, Mariah.
Fun fact: I did an alternative album while I was making Daydream ? Just for laughs, but it got me through some dark days. Here's a little of what I wrote about it in #TheMeaningOfMariahCarey ? S/O to my friend Clarissa who performs the lead w/ me as a hidden layer #Chick #TMOMC pic.twitter.com/Re23t5whcd
— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) September 27, 2020
Photo credit: @MariahCarey