Mariah Carey says her 1995 grunge album is "#notyet" as her It's Time video opens at a club called Chick

Mariah Carey's grunge album came out in 1995, and almost nobody knew it was hers. It was released on September 5, 1995 as Someone's Ugly Daughter by a band called Chick, with her friend Clarissa singing lead and Mariah on background vocals. On October 30, 2026, a fan asked her about it again in a Reddit AMA. Her answer, per Billboard: "I get asked this about once a week... my answer is...#notyet (this is a hint!)". Two days later, her yearly "It's Time" video opened in a punk club with a sign over the door that reads Chick.

Made at night, after Daydream

In 1995 Mariah Carey was recording Daydream at the Hit Factory in New York. When the sessions ended, she kept the band in the studio and wrote alternative rock songs with them, quickly and mostly for fun. On The Tonight Show in 2025 she put it this way: "I was just rebelling because I was working on Daydream."

Her label was Sony, run at the time by her husband, Tommy Mottola. It would not put the record out under her name. Clarissa re-sang the leads, Mariah's voice moved to the background, and the album came out on Epic's 550 label as Chick. Radio ignored it. Mariah kept the story to herself until her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, and told Stephen Colbert the project "got stifled by certain people at the label."

"I always regretted not putting it out, but they kind of stopped me at that point," she told Jimmy Fallon in 2025. "You know, it was Sony at the time."

Six years of hints

Since the memoir she has kept the album in view. On the Las Culturistas podcast in 2024 she said: "I'm so mad that I haven't done that yet." In September 2025 she played songs from it for SZA at an Apple Music event and for Fallon on The Tonight Show. On January 30, 2026, at the MusiCares Person of the Year gala in her honour, Foo Fighters and Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless played two of its songs, "Hermit" and "Love Is a Scam."

What she has not done is release the version with her own lead vocals. The 1995 Chick record is the only one that has ever been sold.

It's time, but not for this

Every year on November 1 Mariah posts a video that opens the Christmas season. The 2026 one starts on Halloween night at 11:58 PM outside a club called Chick, with a punk band on stage. At 11:59:59 it turns into snow, a red dress and "All I Want for Christmas Is You." The grunge album is still a hint.

Until then, the Mariah record most people still play this month is her 1994 Christmas album.