Mariah Carey wants to release the rock album she never got to share

Mariah Carey has said she is planning to release the secret alt-rock album she recorded in 1995.

The singer sparked a fan frenzy when she first disclosed details of Someone’s Ugly Daughter, which came about while she was working on well known records such as “Fantasy”.

At the time, Carey claimed she was blocked from releasing it by her record label, Columbia, and her vocals were originally replaced by her friend Clarissa Dane under the band name Chick.

In a new interview, Carey says she and her team have managed to unearth the original recordings, and she is working on a version that she hopes will be fit for release.

“[It] will become something we should hear, but also, I’m working on a version where there will be another artist working with me,” she said onRolling Stone’s Music Now podcast.

“Possibly something built around the album,” she added.

Carey also discussed the time when she originally recorded the songs: "This was my outlet and nobody knew about it. I would just write these things.”

“I’d say, ‘Can you play [sings guitar part] to the guitar player who happened to be there while we’re working on records like ‘Always Be My Baby’ and ‘One Sweet Day’ and eventually ‘Fantasy’ and whatever from that era,” she told host Brian Hiatt.

“It was like, ‘Let me just do this.’ Because after the session, why not? There’s energy. And we were like working for whatever, 15, 16 hours on scrutinising stuff. And then we just made this record at the same time. I would write the lyrics, go and sing it.”

Describing why the record was not released at the time Carey said: “There was a fear [from the record company] because some of the lyrical content was not what people were [expecting].”

“I honestly wanted to put the record out back then under the same pseudonym and just let them discover that it’s me, but that idea was kind of stomped and squashed. So Clarissa came in.”

During this time, the singer was still married to ex-husband Tommy Mottola – also the CEO of her label, Sony Music. The singer officially divorced from her Mottola back in 1998.

“I had no freedom during that time. That was my freedom. I would drive around with my assistant with the top down in upstate New York and be screaming the lyrics to these songs that nobody else knew. It was my release and it was just fun,” she recalled.

“And I started out like, ‘Oh, this is just for laughs, whatever,’ like we’re having fun. But then I was like, ‘No, this is me screaming. This is literally what I’m going through,’” she said of those years.

The singer has previously spoken about the time of recording in a recent episode of Meghan Markle’s new Spotify podcast, Archetypes. Carey told the Duchess of Sussex how her 1997 album Butterfly “was a pivotal moment in my life”

“Writing and producing and living in the studio and leaving the past life that I had with my first ex-husband behind was extremely difficult,” the singer said, explaining the circumstances in which the album was created.

Describing the title song coming to her like a “gift” Carey said: “In my first marriage, I was very much what’s the word? I was kind of locked away and I was sort of given the rules and had to stick with them.”