Mariah Carey Reveals She Made an Alternative Album While Recording Daydream

Katrina Nattress
·2 min read

Click here to read the full article on SPIN.

As Mariah Carey counts down the days to the release of her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah, she’s sharing some pretty interesting book snippets. Over the weekend, the pop icon revealed on Twitter that she “did an alternative album” while recording 1995’s Daydream, “Just for laughs, but it got me through some dark days.”

She gave a shout out to her friend Clarissa, who sang lead while Carey provided “a hidden layer” of vocals. She shared an excerpt from the book, along with a clip of one of the songs. In the book, she writes:

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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 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.

See Carey’s post below.

Of course, fans immediately started digging and found that a band called Chick did indeed release an album called Someone’s Ugly Daughter the same year Daydream came out. It’s not on streaming services, but select songs have been uploaded to YouTube. Listen to “Malibu” and “Demented” below.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest guitarists of all time, click here.