It was sometime in the mid-1990s that Grunge died. It depends who you ask, some might say the end of Grunge was when Kurt Cobain died, others say when Alice In Chains performed on MTV’s Unplugged in 1996. Either way by the mid-1990’s, it was clear the landscape of the music industry was changing. Lollapalooza, which had long been a staple for breaking new music and going against the grain of the industry, booked Metallica as the headliner in 1996, rock was shifting to a more radio-friendly pop-alternative (Gin Blossoms, Third Eye Blind – basically anything you’d hear on the American Pie soundtracks) and Pop music was making its way back to the top of the charts with the rise of Coolio, TLC and the mainstay power of Mariah Carey …

Around 1995, Grunge had become so popular that you could buy the look in the Sears and K-Mart catalogue

What was originally an anti-conformist movement became the mainstream… bands like KISS, Motley Crue, Van Halen, Neil Young and more were all releasing Grunge records. The genre was slowly dying. But did you know Mariah Carey could have SAVED Grunge music!? Ok, well that’s maybe stretching things a bit for a dramatic effect, but it was revealed when Mariah Carey released her memoir in 2020 that she actually recorded a Grunge album back in 1995.

Before she was the Queen of Christmas, she was secretly the Queen of Plaid Shirts and 20-hole Dr. Marten’s (or so we imagine). It was during her recording sessions for her 1995 album Daydream, that she secretly recorded lead-vocals on a Grunge album called Somebody’s Ugly Daughter under the band name Chick

In her recent memoir, she wrote: “It’s always been a challenge for me to acknowledge and express anger. My personal life was suffocating during Daydream, and I was in desperate need of release.”

There were two versions of this album recorded, one with Carey’s vocals, and the released version (below) with Clarissa Dane on lead vocals. It has a very 1990s high school movie soundtrack vibe to it.

The version with Mariah Carey’s vocals have never seen the light of day. The album was said to be inspired by Sleater-Kinney, L7, and Green Day. Her producer Dana Jon Chappelle told Rolling Stone that Dookie was one of Carey’s favourite albums at that time… who knew!?. Mariah Carey said in 2020 that she was on a mission to “unearth” the version with her vocals, and last week on the Music Now Podcast she revealed she’s found the recordings and will release the album the way the Grunge lords intended with her vocals.

We know you’re dying to hear it, as are we so we’ll keep you updated as we hear more… maybe Grunge will make its ultimate comeback when this album is released, but probably not. Either way is should take us down a fun nostalgic road, like grabbing a coffee at Central Perk.

 

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Filed under: 90s, grunge