Mariah Carey secretly recorded a rock album during sessions for her fifth album Daydream.
The classic record features massive hits like Fantasy, One Sweet Day and Always Be My Baby, but on Twitter on Sunday Mariah revealed the end product was only half of the story.
Alongside an excerpt from her new memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the hitmaker shared that, once the main recording sessions were over, she recorded a bunch of secret tracks for the project, titled Someone’s Ugly Daughter.
“Fun fact: I did an alternative album while I was making Daydream Just for laughs, but it got me through some dark days,” she explained.
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
“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.”
Reflecting on the venture in an extract from her autobiography, released Tuesday, Mariah explained: “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,” she shared, adding “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 off shoes, wrinkled slips, and unruly eyebrows, while every mode I made was so calculated and measured.”
The Butterfly star reflected: “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.”
Pitchfork reported that, according to Carey’s representative, she wrote, produced, and sang background vocals on every song from Chick’s album. She’s also responsible for the album packaging’s art direction, and she directed the video for Malibu.
The album features Clarissa on lead vocals and Mimi as a “hidden layer” but, returning to Twitter hours after her original post, Mariah revealed plans to unearth the original recordings of the record with herself performing the tracks.
“Fun fact 2: now that you’ve listened to Clarissa’s kick-ass lead vocals, I can tell you that I’m on a quest to unearth the version of this album with my lead vocals and will not stop until we find it,” she shared.
Fun fact 2: now that you've listened to Clarissa's kick-ass lead vocals, I can tell you that I'm on a quest to unearth the version of this album with my lead vocals and will not stop until we find it! So happy that we get to experience this together lol! ?❤️? https://t.co/EMukSDgWPu
— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) September 28, 2020
“So happy that we get to experience this together lol!”
Another record would be one of many Mariah treats in recent months – the diva is currently celebrating 30 years since the release of her debut album with the hashtag #MC30 by releasing digital EPs and coloured vinyl albums, along with her new album The Rarities and her new memoir.