Chick (4)

One-off alt-rock project masterminded by Mariah Carey. In the middle of recording her fifth album Daydream in 1995, Carey cut a secret alt-rock record, channelling the "rage" and "anger" she felt as her marriage fell apart. "I created an alter-ego artist and her Ziggy Stardust-like spoof band," she explains. "My character was a dark-haired brooding Goth girl who wrote and sang ridiculous tortured songs. "I was playing with the style of the breezy-grunge, punk-light white female singers who were popular at the time. They could be angry, angsty and messy, with old shoes, wrinkled slips and unruly eyebrows, while every move I made was so calculated and manicured. I wanted to break free, let loose and express my misery - but I also wanted to laugh." Of the writing process, she says: "At the end of each session [for Daydream] I would go off to a corner and, without over-thinking it, quickly scribble down some lyrics. In five minutes, I'd have a song. "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." Sony Music refused to release the record with Carey’s vocals as the lead, renamed the band from Eel Tree to Chick and made Carey sanitise many of the more explicit lyrics. Singer Clarissa Dane was brought in to become the face of Chick and perform lead vocals on top of Carey's. The album was released in 1995 under the name Chick, with Carey credited under the pseudonym D. Sue, possibly a pun on the French pronunciation, déçue meaning disappointed / frustrated. Song titles like Love Is A Scam and Demented give some none-too-subtle clues about Mariah's state of mind at the time.