Mariah Carey made headlines last year with the reveal of Chick, an alt-rock group she created at the peak of her fame in 1995 which went undiscovered for years. Now, she's made headlines again with the reveal that the band may return - with an unlikely frontwoman.
Mariah initially created Chick during the sessions for the Daydream album in 1995, inspired by the likes of female rock singer-songwriters such as Blondie and Pat Benatar. At the time, the harder, grungier sessions made a welcome respite from the highly controlled, perfect image that Mariah had cultivated during her R&B work. "I created an alter-ego artist and her Ziggy Stardust-like spoof band," Mariah stated in her book. "My character was a dark-haired brooding Goth girl [a version of her, Bianca, showed up a few years later in the ‘Heartbreaker’ video] who wrote and sang ridiculous tortured songs."
During her months of sessions at New York's Hit Factory, Mariah made enough material as Chick to release an entire album with the group, entitled Someone's Ugly Daughter. Sadly, record label executives refused to release the album, believing that it would negatively impact her image and chart success. Mariah ended up removing her vocals from the album and replacing them with those of her friends Clarissa Dane, and the album was released to little fanfare back in September of 1995.
While Mariah has mentioned several times that she's continuing to search for a version of the album with her own vocals included, a new interview podcast has cast doubt on a Mariah-led version of the album ever being released at all. Speaking with Questlove on his Questlove Supreme podcast, Mariah mentioned that she now has someone else in mind to take over the role of frontwoman.
"I actually [have] been having conversations with someone, I'm not going to name, about doing another version of Chick, some of those songs and writing couple of new ones," Mariah revealed. "And I'm asking you now, if you will write those with me or at least like explore it because she's a young 16-year-old girl, who is very famous, and she's perfect for this. [...] She's an actress, but she wants to sing as well. And we've already had conversations about it and I'm planning on, hopefully, working on it this coming month."
While Mariah didn't reveal any solid information about who she had in mind for the role, fans minds immediately jumped to Stranger Things star and Carey-bestie Millie Bobby Brown. Brown ticks the boxes as a sixteen year old actress who wants to get into singing, and her close relationship with Mariah (she recently appeared in Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special on Apple TV) means that it's likely she's the one in mind for the project.
But the question remains: can she sing? Check out a little acapella moment from an interview a few years ago and let us know what you think:
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