Mariah Carey Opens Her Christmas Season With a Hint About a Lost Grunge Album
Mariah Carey started her holiday season on Sunday, Nov. 1, with her annual "It's Time!" video, and it doubled as a tease for a record fans have never heard.
Billboard reported that the clip opens with a calendar changing to November while Carey, in a bedazzled Santa-inspired jumpsuit, plays "All I Want for Christmas Is You." She captioned the post "IT'S TIME!!!!" Her son Moroccan replied in the comments: "ITS FREAKING TIME YO."
The first half of the video is a different world. Carey wears a colourful wig, punk makeup and fishnets, and performs in a New York City dive bar. The song is "Hermit," the centrepiece of Someone's Ugly Daughter, a grunge album she recorded more than 30 years ago while working on her 1995 album Daydream. It was never properly released. For now it exists only under a pseudonym, Chick, with Clarissa Dane singing instead of Carey.
Carey then stage dives into the crowd as the clock strikes midnight, and the video moves to a Christmas scene. The teaser follows a Reddit Ask Me Anything in which she was asked about the shelved record. Her answer was short: "I get asked this about once a week. my answer is...#notyet (this is a hint!)"
The next day, Carey shared a new partnership with the Italian luxury label Gucci, a holiday commercial in which she makes a grand entrance at a hotel. Staff hurriedly decorate before she arrives, and a glamorous holiday party follows. The commercial is set to "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
That song has spent a collective 22 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the main weekly singles chart in the United States, since its release in 1994. Carey's official biography describes her as the best-selling female artist of all time, with more than 200 million albums sold and 19 Hot 100 No. 1 singles. The track has also been the subject of legal action. In January 2024, Carey responded to a federal copyright lawsuit in California over the song.
Her website is also promoting the 4K release of the "Loverboy (feat. Cameo)" remix video, and a limited-edition picture disc marking the 30th anniversary of Merry Christmas. A 2026 video posted to Facebook was made in partnership with the beauty brand Sol de Janeiro.
What the video does not do is give a release date. Carey's hint is the only word on Someone's Ugly Daughter so far, and the holiday season she has just opened will run for weeks.
