Why Mariah Carey Is Frustrated About the Delay of Her Hidden Grunge Album
By Website Content Manager
In 2022, Carey discovered the initial recording featuring her lead vocals.
We haven’t overlooked Mariah Carey’s hidden grunge album—and neither has she!
In a chat with Saturday Night Live’s Bowen Yang and comedian Matt Rogers on their podcast Las Culturistas, part of iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell’s Big Money Players Network, Carey was reminded that fans are still eager for her elusive grunge album.
“Is there any chance you could release that grunge album?” Rogers inquired.
“I know, right?” Carey, 55, responded. “I’m really frustrated that I haven’t released it yet… but who would I collaborate with to drop it?”
Bowen and Rogers humorously entertained the notion of starting their own label, suggesting the “stylish” idea of releasing it on “Garage Band or something, you know, in a grungy way.”
“I could totally do that. It’s a solid album,” Carey remarked.
In 1995, while working on her successful album Daydream, the R&B star secretly recorded a grunge album. Despite being at the height of the alternative rock surge in the mid-’90s, record label executives were hesitant about associating her name with the project.
“I got into a bit of trouble for making this alternative album because, at that time, everything was tightly controlled by those in power,” Carey shared in a 2020 interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “I never thought, ‘Oh, we’re going to release it.’ But then I realized I should put it out. I considered doing it under a pseudonym, letting people discover it organically, but that idea was shut down.”
Motivated by her tumultuous marriage to Tommy Mottola (whom she would divorce two years after the album was recorded) and influenced by bands like Hole and Sleater-Kinney, Carey created what eventually became Eel Tree’s Somebody’s Ugly Daughter.
“I was experimenting with the breezy-grunge, punk-light style of the white female singers who were popular at that time. You know, the ones who appeared carefree about their emotions and images,” she wrote in her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey. “They could express anger, angst, and chaos, sporting old shoes, wrinkled slips, and messy eyebrows, while every step I took was meticulously calculated and polished. I wanted to break free, let go, and share my pain—but I also wanted to find joy.”
Her longtime producer, Walter Afanasieff, revealed to Pitchfork that Sony Music reportedly rebranded the band as Chick, made Carey alter explicit lyrics, and brought in her friend Clarissa Dane to take over lead vocals. However, Carey’s background vocals were retained, and she was credited as “D. Sue.”
In 2022, Carey disclosed that the original recordings of Somebody’s Ugly Daughter, featuring her as the lead vocalist, still exist. “This was my creative outlet, and no one was aware of it. I’d prefer that most people don’t find out about it until we determine what to do with those vocals,” she mentioned in an interview with Rolling Stone Music Now.
“I lacked freedom during that period. This was my escape,” she clarified. “I would drive around with my assistant, the top down, in upstate New York, and we’d be belting out the lyrics to these songs that no one else knew.”