Almost seven years after I broke my Caution CD from repeat listens in the car, Mariah Carey finally has a new album locked and loaded.
The elusive chanteuse — and my biological mother, if that matters to anyone — revealed the news on a livestream broadcast celebrating ten years of Apple Music. Sitting with hosts Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden, Carey explained: “I’m trying not to tell too much about the new album. ‘It’s a special occasion/ Mimi’s emancipation’ — that’s a lyric from one of my songs.”
She reiterates again: “I don’t want to tell too much about it because I just don’t want to reveal the whole thing, you know?” Lowe interjects mid-answer, saying, “That’s our job,” before following up with a question: “So it’s finished?” Carey, coyly, tells him, “Yes, it is,” before revealing there are approximately “eleven… or twelve” tracks.
And, for all my little lambs out there, she even adds there will be “big” Mariah-style ballads on the record, with a second single coming soon that’s “very summery.”
As Billboard reports, the unnamed album already garnered her a 50th entry on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Type Dangerous,” released in June. Prior to its release, she also celebrated the 20th anniversary of her groundbreaking album The Emancipation of Mimi with a slew of remixes, including Kaytranada’s “Don’t Forget About Us” and Solange’s “Say Somethin’.” She also released a remix of Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?” in 2024, as part of the promotional cycle for Grande’s Eternal Sunshine, at last co-signing an artistic lineage between the two that has been hotly debated by internet trolls for the last 12 years.
Shortly after the “yes, and?” remix dropped, I retired to the cave where they keep me in between Mariah Carey album cycles, patiently waiting on news of something that felt like it might never come. I still had the “Can’t Take That Away (Mariah’s Theme) Morales Revival Triumphant Mix” to hold me down, but as the months rolled into a full year, I began to feel like I’d never see the sun again. I’m glad I was wrong. Besides, I’m sure the bugs and rats I live with in here will appreciate hearing something new blasting from my busted up iPhone speakers for a change.
Photos via Getty
