Mariah Carey is set to drop her memoir this week and has posted an excerpt from it revealing her involvement in an alt-rock band during the mid-’90s.
As it turns out, Carey recorded a record as part of a little-known band called Chick at the same time she was recording her 1995 album Daydream.
The band included her friend Clarissa on lead vocals, with Carey singing as “a hidden layer”, and a graphic on the clip she shared reveals that Chick had an album called Someone’s Ugly Daughter.
Discogs confirms the existence of the album by Chick, released in 1995 as a ‘rock’ album, including eleven tracks with titles like ‘Malibu’, ‘Demented’ and ‘Love Is A Scam’.
“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,” she revealed in the excerpt.
“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.”
Mariah Carey describes her involvement in Chick as an “alter-ego” and the alt-rock style as that of “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.”
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“They could be angry, angsty, and messy, with old shoes, wrinkled slips, and unruly eyebrows, while every movie I made was so calculated and manicured. I wanted to break free, let loose, and express my misery — but I also wanted to laugh. totally looked forward to doing my alter-ego band sessions after Daydream each night,” she continued.
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
Stereogum notes that while none of Chick’s songs are available on streaming services, there are a few on YouTube, copyrighted to Sony/BMG Music Entertainment who Carey was signed with at the time.
Mariah Carey’s memoir will be released on Tuesday, September 29th, so there’s likely to be more to come from this one.
Check out ‘Malibu’ by Mariah Carey & Chick:
