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Billboard Latin Music Week continued on its third day Oct. 16 with a panel on The Winning Combination of Sports and Music presented by Walmart.
The conversation, moderated by athlete manager Daniella Durán, gathered artists Piso 21 and Guillermo Novellis of La Mosca Tsé Tsé, and soccer stars Igor Lichnovsky (Inter Miami, Club América) and Leonardo “Leo” Campana (Inter Miami).
“There’s mutual admiration,” Piso 21’s Juan David “El Profe” said. “Many soccer players want to be artists, and many artists have that frustrated dream of being a soccer player.”
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“It’s true,” Campana noted. “I play soccer, but I would rather be an artist. I’m the type of person who likes to consume a music album from beginning to end.”
During the conversation, Novellis shared how his song “Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos a Ilusionar” became a soccer anthem in Argentina.
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“When Leo Messi heard it, the song went viral,” the Argentine rock artist said. “Everything else was thanks to soccer, the people, the seven [soccer] matches, the astros aligning. That song is always going to be related to the happiest moments of all Argentineans and Messi.”
“Music is everything to an athlete … it’s motivation, dopamine,” Lichnovsky added. “I train with music, I change in the locker room with music. It plays a very important role in everyone’s mood … Music generates happiness and that connection with people. They can see that we are human beings and we can have fun too.”
Meanwhile, Piso 21 — whose latest single, “Fichaje del Año,” in collaboration with Ozuna, was inspired by sports — announced that their new album is dropping this week.
“The idea is to let yourself be surprised and to enjoy the whole album: 10 new songs, produced by Icon Music,” Piso 21’s Lorduy said. “We have been working on this whole album for a year. 2.1 is an album of renewal and evolution for Piso 21. There will be music to refresh, to dedicate, and to dance to.”
Over the past 35 years, Latin Music Week has become the one, steady foundation of Latin music in this country, becoming the single most important — and biggest — gathering of Latin artists and industry executives in the world. Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.
Ae! Group’s “Gotta Be” blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, dated Oct. 16.
The title track of the quintet’s second single launched with 411,052 CDs in its first week to rule sales and also came in at No. 4 for radio airplay. Though the figure didn’t match the previous release, “A-Beginning” (782,835 copies in its first week), “Gotta Be” gives Ae! Group its first No. 1 on the tally.
NMB48’s “Ganbaranuwai” debuts at No. 2. The girl group’s 30th single sold 251,651 copies in its first week to hit No. 2 for sales.
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Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Lilac” follows at No. 3. The Oblivion Battery opener is still going strong in three metrics of the chart’s measurement: streaming (up 101%), downloads (up 112%), and karaoke (slight gain). The former No. 1 hit has coasted along in the top 3 for seven consecutive weeks and in the top 5 for 26 consecutive weeks. The three-man pop band recently launched its eight-day residency at K-Arena Yokohama, slated to run through Nov. 20.
Creepy Nuts’ “Otonoke” jumps 32-4. The opener for the anime series Dandadan dropped digitally on Oct. 4 and debuted at No. 32 last week. Streaming for the track increased by 337% compared to last week, downloads by 135%, and radio by 437%. The number of downloads has remained higher than that of the duo’s smash hit “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” in both the first and second weeks, so whether the pair’s latest release can also become a long-term hit is something to keep an eye on.
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Comparing the number of streams by country during the first week for each track, “BBBB” logged 33% of its plays from Japan and 16% from the U.S., while “Otonoke” accumulated 41% from Japan and 18% from the U.S., showing a slight increase in the U.S., according to Luminate. In other countries, “BBBB” was played more in Europe, such as in Germany and Spain, while “Otonoke” was played more in Southeast Asia and Latin America, including Mexico and Indonesia.
Official HIGE DANdism’s “Same Blue” rises 7-5. Streaming for the Blue Box opener gained 188% compared to the week before.
KID PHENOMENON’s “Unstoppable” debuts at No. 6, selling 66,499 copies and coming in at No. 3 for sales.
The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.
See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from Oct. 7 to 13, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English X account.
Sir Elton John has been honored in innumerable ways during the span of his half-century career. But later this year Madame Tussauds London will pay tribute to the Rocket Man with a one-of-a-kind, gravity-defying figure that pays homage to the pop icon’s wild and wooly 1970s heyday. According to a press release, the latest rendering […]
It’s quite the picture: Lainey Wilson performs in a club with fewer than 100 seats and sings a song that’s so new she needs one of her fellow performers — Post Malone, of all people — to hold her cellphone so she can read the lyrics off the screen.
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That was the setting when Wilson took part in a songwriters-in-the-round event on June 17 at Nashville’s vaunted Bluebird Cafe. It was, she says, the first time she had performed “4x4xU” live.
“I didn’t even know the chords,” she recalls. “I was just making them up that night.”
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The song would make its way into the public sphere when Broken Bow released the track and its accompanying video to digital service providers on July 4, ahead of the Aug. 23 street date for her album Whirlwind. On Aug. 26, “4x4xU” officially went to radio via PlayMPE, continuing a trend she has unintentionally developed with prior singles “Heart Like a Truck” and “Wait in the Truck,” a collaboration with HARDY.
“For so long,” she says, “I was like, ‘I’m not going to write about trucks.’ That’s what everybody does. [But] every single one of my biggest songs is about a damn truck. I couldn’t help it, but I guess you just write what you know. And the truth is, trucks are a big part of my childhood and even with the way that I live now, I’m always up and down the road.”
Appropriately, Wilson wrote “4x4xU” on the road when she played Indianapolis’ Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Nov. 1, 2023, in conjunction with the 96th annual FFA Convention. The event cultivated some of her creative mindset for the day.
“I was excited to be at the FFA Convention,” she reflects. “My daddy started one of the very first FFAs at Louisiana Tech in Ruston. It just felt cool. It felt like, ‘Man, I want to kind of write a song about my people. I want to write a song about keeping my people close.’ ”
It was not the first thing on the menu. Co-writers Aaron Raitiere (“You Look Like You Love Me”) and Jon Decious helped her craft a cheeky light-funk piece, “Ring Finger,” first. Once that was completed, they found themselves with a small pre-concert window, and they were all game for a whirlwind attempt at something else.
“We didn’t have more than 30 or 40 minutes,” Decious says. “She had to go be a superstar, you know, in 50 minutes.”
Decious wasted no time — as they strummed guitars on the bus, he brought up the “4x4xU” hook he had developed during a brainstorming session.
“I spend, gosh, several hours a week just title-hunting, I call it, and that was one that I just kind of came across,” he says. “It sort of reminded me — like, I’m a big Prince fan, and you know how he would put numbers [in titles] and also, instead of writing out ‘you,’ he would just put the letter ‘U.’ ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ is a good example. That’s kind of cool, but I don’t see it too often in country.”
Wilson turned the “4x4xU” hook into a gently ascending melody, very close to the way Decious had imagined it, and the phrase became the opening line of the chorus. The next line, “From the bayou to Kentucky,” enhanced the truck’s travel vibe in a personal way.
“She’s from the bayou, and we’re from Kentucky,” Raitiere says. “We were putting all these little, little, little nuggets in there. Hopefully people hear it on the second listen or something.”
Those two lines had a subtle verbal tie — the “4×4 by you” sounds like the “bayou” — and they added a few more locations in the rest of the chorus. They changed those communities on the second verse, covering New York, Los Angeles and a couple of cities with quirky names.
“We just wanted to get them all over the place,” Raitiere says. “And then Timbuktu; I been putting Timbuktu in songs for a while. Kalamazoo rhymes with Timbuktu. Those just seem like weird words. I actually had somebody come up to me from Kalamazoo and say they were so proud to have Kalamazoo in another song.”
When they formed the opening verse, they instinctively took a cinematic approach. The plot’s lens focused first on the singer, riding shotgun in the moving vehicle, then on the guy in the driver’s seat, who has his “hands 10 and two on this heart of mine.” That’s one of those nuggets Raitiere cited, the steering-wheel numbers setting up the four-by-four to come.
They parked the car in verse two, dropping their speed “90 to nothing,” once more feeding more numbers into the text. By the time they reached the bridge, the plot seemingly left the vehicle, pointing the camera toward the sun, the stars and the moon.
“I love that contrast,” Decious says. “You know, four-by-fours, the idea of it is so down home and so tangible, but then the idea of space and time is very intangible. So I love the contrast of those. I think it was just an accident that we went there, a happy accident.”
When Wilson brought “4x4xU” to producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Miranda Lambert), the track was layered during tracking at the Neon Cross Studio with multiple keyboards, including soulful electric piano and churchy organ sounds. The bridge received special treatment with a revised set of more ambitious chords and a fermata — an extended hold as pieces of electronica create otherworldly atmospherics.
“Jay does this a lot,” Wilson says. “He kind of takes you to outer space. He’ll kind of take you somewhere up in the clouds, and then when you’re coming back into that chorus, it’s almost like he brings you back down to Earth. When you can get both of those feelings — when you can feel grounded and rooted, like your feet are on the ground but also feel like your head is in the clouds — to me, there’s something really special about being able to feel both in a song.”
One other unusual moment in “4x4xU” occurs in the last half of verse two, with the band breaking into double time, directly contrasting with the “slow motion” lyric.
“That was my one production note,” Wilson says. “I was like, ‘What about if we kind of dug in right here and got a little sexy on it?’ And Jay was down for it.”
The fan base reacted strongly to “4x4xU,” and it continues its steady upward movement on the charts, reaching No. 28 in its sixth week on the Country Airplay list dated Oct. 19 and No. 32 in its fifth week on the corresponding Hot Country Songs. Just as importantly, it has a key role in Wilson’s concerts.
“I still felt like we were missing something that was a big moment, a put-your-hands-in-the-air, sway-back-and-forth kind of thing,” she says. “Truthfully, it’s all about the live show.”
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated Oct. 26, we look at the most competitive race we’ve had on the albums chart in some time, as a pair of big new releases (and a just-retooled slightly older one) compete to claim the top spot.
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Jelly Roll, Beautifully Broken (Republic): If it feels impossible that Jelly Roll is only releasing his first album of 2024 this October, there’s a reason for that. The 2023 country breakout star has been absolutely ubiquitous throughout 2024, showing up everywhere from the Emmys to SNL to Congress (!!) to Twisters: The Album to new sets by Post Malone, Eminem, Falling in Reverse and Jessie Murph – as well as on plenty of his own new releases, including the Billboard Hot 100 Hits “I Am Not Okay” and “Liar.” But indeed, his LP follow-up to last year’s Whitsitt Chapel did not arrive until just last Friday (Oct. 11), in the form of Beautifully Broken.
The new set features those two aforementioned hits, as well as guest appearances by rapper Wiz Khalifa, his “Lonely Road” collaborator mgk and singer-songwriter Isley Jubey. It’s available as a 14-track standard physical album and 22-track deluxe on digital download and streaming services – and if that’s not enough Jelly Roll in your life, Friday also saw the release of a 28-track super-deluxe edition subtitled (Pickin’ Up the Pieces), which features additional guest appearances from country stars ERNEST and Keith Urban, singer-rapper Russ and singer-songwriters Halsey and Skylar Grey.
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The 28-track length should certainly help the set’s numbers on streaming, where Jelly Roll usually performs fairly well for a country artist – but Beautifully Broken is expected to do most of its damage in sales. The album is available on his webstore on cassette, CD and vinyl, including gold and camo vinyl variants and a signed CD, as well as a fan pack featuring the signed CD along with a T-shirt or hoodie. There’s also a clear/gold splatter vinyl version exclusively available at indie stores, and a “silver nugget” variant exclusive to Amazon, while the digital deluxe and Pieces editions of the album are on sale on iTunes for $4.99 and $7.99, respectively. It all could add up to Jelly Roll’s first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 – though in a competitive week, he’ll still need all the help he can get.
Rod Wave, Last Lap (Alamo): One artist who already has several Billboard 200 No. 1s to his credit is Florida-born rapper Rod Wave. Despite keeping a low mainstream profile and never really scoring a crossover pop hit – with even hip-hop radio support remaining limited – Rod Wave has maintained consistent commercial success that most MCs can only dream of, with three straight No. 1 albums in three straight years this decade: 2021’s SoulFly, 2022’s Beautiful Mind and last year’s Nostalgia.
Will Rod Wave be able to go 4-for-4? The stacked week could make it tough, but the album is off to another hot start on streaming. Like Future’s Mixtape Pluto a couple weeks ago, Last Lap’s presence on Spotify has been minimal – claiming just one spot on the current Daily Top Songs USA chart, with “25” ranking at No. 138 – but it has been absolutely dominant on Apple Music, occupying seven of the top 10 spots on the DSP’s real-time chart, including the entire top three (led by “25”). It will need to keep up that streaming performance to have a shot at the top spot, because as has also traditionally been the case with new Rod Wave releases, the album is not yet available for physical purchase – though it is also available digitally on iTunes for $4.99.
Charli XCX, Brat (Atlantic): Though Brat Summer has come and gone – at least according to the weather outside – Charli XCX’s Brat album has remained a fixture on the Billboard 200, ranking at No. 14 this week in its 18th week on the chart. It should get a huge bump next week from the release of its new complementary remix edition: Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, a star-studded 34 (or 35, including the recently released add-on “Spring Breakers” with Kesha) track affair which includes new versions of each of Brat’s original 15 cuts (as well as bonus track “Guess,” now with Billie Eilish), with each redo featuring one or multiple new big-name featured artists.
The much-anticipated completely different version of Brat includes Charli’s previously released spins on “360” (with Robyn and Yung Lean), “Girl So Confusing” (with Lorde) “Von Dutch” (with A.G. Cook and Addison Rae) and “Talk Talk” (with Troye Sivan) as well as the aforementioned “Guess.” Some of the most attention-grabbing newly added names to the guest list include The 1975 (along with Jon Hopkins on “I Might Say Something Stupid”), Bon Iver (on “I Think About It All the Time”) and pop superstar Ariana Grande (on “Sympathy Is a Knife”). The completely different version of Brat, as with all other previously released permutations of Brat, will all be combined into one Brat for chart purposes.
The set should rack up a good amount of curiosity streams for its new remixes and the big names on them, and it’s also available for purchase on Charli’s webstore in double-CD, double-cassette and triple-vinyl editions (and for $4.99 on iTunes), all of which also include the original Brat tracklist. But with the entirely new Jelly Roll and Rod Wave albums getting in the way this week, Charli will have her work cut out for her in passing the original No. 3 debut spot of Brat on the Billboard 200 even with the added help.
IN THE MIX
GloRilla, Glorious (CMG/Interscope): Though many prematurely wrote off GloRilla when her 2023 did not maintain the momentum of her breakout 2022, her official debut album is now coming at the exact right time – hot off the momentum of 2024 hits “Yeah Glo!,” “Wanna Be” (with Megan Thee Stallion), “TGIF” and “Hollon.” The first two of those aren’t found on Glorious, but the latter two are, along with appearances from the aforementioned Stallion, Muni Long, Latto, Bossman Dlow, Sexyy Red and more big-name guests – with the Sexyy teamup “Whatchu Kno About Me” already looking on its way to breakout hit status. In many other weeks this autumn, Glorious’ strong streaming entrance (and webstore availability on signed CD, and in a digital download with an exclusive bonus track) would likely have it as a contender for the Billboard 200’s top debut – but in this stacked week, it may have to settle for top five.
A summer slowdown in new Billboard Hot 100 top 10s has been followed by a near fall freeze.
Over the past three-plus months, between Hot 100 charts dated from the beginning of July through Oct. 19, only seven songs have notched new peaks in the top 10, led by Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which has run up an active 14-week reign — the third-longest this decade — beginning July 13.
The other six such Hot 100 top 10s in that span (pending any further climbs): Morgan Wallen’s “Lies Lies Lies” (No. 7 peak, July 20); Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” (No. 3, Aug. 31); Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” (No. 2, Sept. 7); Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” (No. 4, Sept. 28); Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” (No. 2, Oct. 12); and The Weeknd and Playboi Carti’s “Timeless” (No. 3, Oct. 12).
The tracks have gained entrance to an especially exclusive club of long-running hits in the Hot 100’s top 10 in that stretch, also among them Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” which has lodged in the tier for 39 weeks and counting, tying for the fifth-longest top 10 stay in the chart’s archives. Plus, Carpenter’s “Espresso” and Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” at Nos. 4 and 10, respectively, on the latest list have each spent 25 weeks in the top 10, while “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has pulled up a stool in the region for 24 weeks.
The extent of two songs hitting new highs in the Hot 100’s top 10 so far in October, following two each in September and July and one in August, represents the most fallow three-month-plus period for turnover in the top bracket over the chart’s entire 66-year history.
Put in further perspective, “Die With a Smile” in August ended a nearly five-year run of multiple Hot 100 top 10s posting new peaks every month since; in November 2018, Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” was the only track to do so, when it began a seven-week rule. Overall, such inertia in the top 10 is rare. March 2009 sported one hit reaching a new high (The All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell”), while January 2002 marks the only monthly shutout ever. (Eilish wasn’t ready yet to keep the streak going, as she was born the month before.)
The current trend of hits repeating in the Hot 100’s top 10 isn’t necessarily a bad thing — every week in the chart’s history has featured exactly 10 in-demand top 10s, regardless of their age. A chicken-and-egg element is also involved: Are big hits so strong that newer songs can’t overcome them, or are challengers not on the same level? In any case, a select group of established hits — many multiformat smashes strong in streaming, airplay and sales — is preventing new songs from cycling through the chart’s upper reaches at a rate in line with the past.
What’s behind the relative lack of movement in the Hot 100’s top 10 since early summer? Below are five seemingly key factors.
Country Strong
Image Credit: Eric Ryan Anderson
Four powerful women who have built upon the legacies of their family names — Camila Fernández, Chiquis Rivera, Lupita Infante and Majo Aguilar — sat down together Wednesday (Oct. 16) at Billboard Latin Music Week 2024 and talked about how they rose above and assumed their own path in leadership roles in regional Mexican music.
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Moderated by Luana Pagani, founder of Fairwinds, and presented by Smirnoff Ice, the artists discussed during The Legacies panel how they are taking their illustrious family names and breaking through with their own sounds.
Here are the best quotes from the panel:
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Camila Fernández: “[Our ancestors] inherit us in affection, and [fans tell me], ‘You remind me so much of your grandfather [Vicente Fernández]’. I’ve been working for 10 years for my hands. My grandfather used to say that success comes from work, not luck. It’s a mantra. You always have to have that thought. Exceed the expectations people have of you. Give honor to the family you come from; to keep elevating Mexico.”
“I need to start from zero to know [about being in the spotlight]; to earn it, that it’s not a whim of mine. Yes, I can do it! I make a fresh spin on mariachi for the new generations. Dressed as a charra and singing mariachi. My tour is called La Fernández.”
Chiquis: “From the beginning, I wanted to put a mark on my career. I want to do it with a lot of love. I’m proud to be Jenni Rivera’s daughter. She [did everything] with ovaries. She said, ‘If you don’t open this door for me I’m going out the window, but I’m going in.’ The first time I got on stage was when I was 10 years old in a competition my grandfather [Pedro Rivera] had. ‘I want to do that.’ An album of corridos. It was in 2012 that I said, ‘I want to try that’. And I sang ‘La Chacalosa’ [by Jenni Rivera] and won second place. Let them say what they say … I feel very proud of what we have been able to do, but even more proud of how I feel as a woman in my gender. We are stronger together.”
Lupita Infante: “It’s a great responsibility [the inheritance]. In the end it’s the public that decides if you continue with this career. I will never stop being [Pedro Infante’s] granddaughter. I feel that I grew up far away from the industry, from show business. My dad [Pedro Infante Jr.] passed away in 2009. My grandfather is long gone. And that’s where I got close [to music]. Connecting with Mexico. I’m from Los Angeles.”
“We who do the mariachi genre, it’s something very beautiful, very traditional, and it’s hard to break away, because you want to represent the genre. I am a producer as well. Change certain elements and find and look for that sound that I still have that I am respecting the mariachi.”
Majo Aguilar: “Since a long time ago I had it clear that I wanted to go forward, not sideways. Of course it helps [being the granddaughter of Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre]. It is important to say it, otherwise it would be very unfair not to recognize it. That you have that surname that your family has done super important things in the industry. I admire all the girls here very much. Your mom is Jenni Rivera, you are already Chiquis, that you have achieved that with such a great mother, imagine being Jenni Rivera’s daughter, [Chiquis] you have paved so much road for us. My case is very particular, music chose me, and not music. Now I understand why I have this restlessness to sing”.
“I do mariachi with love, not to follow trends. To fuse the mariachi instruments with the tumbado format. Mariachi Tumbado is the name of my album. We have to embrace our genres, now they are in the global charts, and feel very proud”.
Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.
Yng Lvcas and Peso Pluma have a billion reasons to celebrate this week. The Mexican singer/rappers both scored their first ever ticket into the YouTube Billion Views Club this week when the clip for the remix of their smash 2023 collaboration, “La Bebe,” crossed the 10-digit line. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]
Members of The Lumineers, Dropkick Murphys, American Authors, Rise Against and Plain White T’s are among the artists taking part in a new Public Service Announcement encouraging people to get ready to vote.
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The #KnowBeforeYouGo campaign is a partnership between talent agency Wasserman and non-partisan, non-profit voter information and registration organization HeadCount.
Other Wasserman music clients taking part in the PSA, which debuts below, include Lisa Loeb, Vincint, A-Trak, Bartees Strange and Ambar Lucid. Additionally, Wasserman sports clients featured in video are Julie Foudy, Jason Collins, Sierra Quitiquit, Weston McKennie, Hilary Knight, Alexander Mattison, Chris Mosier and Lela Rochon.
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The 75-second PSA will air on HeadCount’s YouTube channel, as well as Wasserman and HeadCount’s social media channels and was produced by Wasserman’s creative agency, Laundry Service. In it, the artists and athletes remind voters to check their registration, as well as their options for early voting and vote-by-mail, as well as in person on Nov. 5.
“The #KnowBeforeYouGo campaign brings together iconic figures in music and sports to encourage people to exercise their most precious democratic right: voting,” said Lucille Wenegieme, executive director of HeadCount, in a statement to Billboard. “Through the PSA, we aim to equip voters with the information they need to show up confidently at the polls, helping to create a culture where civic participation is celebrated and valued. Together, Wasserman and HeadCount are inspiring a new generation to make their voices heard every election cycle.”
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Denise Melanson, Wasserman’s vp of social impact, added, “Wasserman and our clients have been working with HeadCount for years through various campaigns and initiatives. When it came time us to establish our own campaign, HeadCount was the obvious choice as a partner. Their passion for civic engagement while harnessing the power of popular culture is synonymous with Wasserman’s mission”
HeadCount has registered more 350,000 people so far during the 2024 election cycle at over 3,000 events and through partnerships with over 100 music artists. For more information, voters can visit headcount.org/wasserman.
It’s been nearly 30 years since Mariah Carey recorded a grunge album with her band, but it’s still not too late for the world to hear the icon embrace her inner rock star.
On the episode of Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’ Las Culturistas podcast that dropped Wednesday (Oct. 16), the vocalist confirmed that she hasn’t forgotten about Someone’s Ugly Daughter, the alt-rock LP she worked on with her band in 1995 while simultaneously recording her album Daydream. “I’m so mad I haven’t done that yet,” she told the hosts of wanting to release the shelved project.
Even so, Mimi says there are some logistics she hasn’t yet thought about. “Who do I drop it with?” she said, to which Rogers suggested she release it independently through Garage Band.
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“I could do that,” Carey continued. “It’s a good album. OK, you will hear it. I was getting life from that, seriously. It was jokes, as well. They’re everlasting.”
As told by the “Obsessed” singer in her 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the singer and her band wrote and recorded Someone’s Ugly Daughter to blow off steam while working on Daydream. She initially wanted to drop it as it was, but ended up releasing it under the pseudonym Chick with her friend Clarissa Dane on lead vocals.
The Songbird Supreme previously spoke about the grunge album on Rolling Stone Music Now in 2020, confirming that she’d uncovered the original version of the record with her voice at the forefront. “I think this unearthed version will become something that, yes, we should hear,” she said at the time. “But also, I’m working on a version of something where there’ll be another artist working on this with me as well … Possibly something built around the album. I’m just full of surprises.”
Carey’s episode of Las Culturistas comes as the superstar is gearing up to embark on her 2024 holiday tour, which kicks off Nov. 6 in Highland, Calif. The trek will run for about six weeks, with the star making stops in Texas, Georgia, Philadelphia and more parts of the U.S. before closing out Dec. 17 in Brooklyn, N.Y.
“It is going very well,” she recently told Entertainment Tonight of rehearsals for the tour. “We just finished up working on my setlist, getting the whole stage together, the ensembles, the fits — all of it.”
In April, Carey will reach the 20-year anniversary of her iconic album The Emancipation of Mimi, which spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2005. The five-time Grammy winner kicked things off a few months early at the beginning of October with a performance of “We Belong Together” at the American Music Awards.
Listen to Carey’s Las Culturistas episode below.