Carey originally provided lead vocals until she was told by record label executives that the album could not be released in that form, due to worries it could damage her image and thriving career.
In 1995, she sarcastically stated in an interview that her new album would be "an alternative record", referring to her work on Someone's Ugly Daughter.
I’m a musical person.” [5]In 2003, when asked about the name of her then-label Crave Records, Carey stated that she wasn't ready to reveal the true origin of the name.
[7] In December 2020, Carey confirmed in an Apple Music interview that she had found the version of the album with her vocals but was still looking for the original board mixes.
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.” Carey also expressed in her memoir that she "looked forward to doing her alter-ego sessions after recording Daydream each night".
While working on Daydream, Carey's longtime writing partner and producer Walter Afanasieff mentioned that they explored the notion of making punk music just for fun.
[10] He also stated that Carey was inspired by bands like Hole, Garbage, and Sleater-Kinney and "channeled frustrations about her marriage into the music".
[10] In her memoir, Carey stated that, she was "playing with the style of the breezy-grunge, punk-light white female singers who were popular at the time," allowing herself to express her misery and be carefree with her feelings throughout the creation of the album.
"[10] Dana Jon Chappelle, Carey's longtime engineer and someone who witnessed the band's natural progression, added, "It just sort of happened.
"[10] After working on Daydream during the day, everyone would switch to recording what would be Someone's Ugly Daughter around midnight, even going as late as six in the morning.
'"[10] He mentioned how the band would pull in studio staff, interns, friends hanging around, and people with Mariah to contribute background vocals and ad-libs — even if they couldn't sing.
[10] Afanasieff stated that "Sony renamed the band from Eel Tree to Chick, and made Carey—who co-wrote every song except for the cover of Cheap Trick’s "Surrender" — sanitize many of the more explicit lyrics".
[10] Pitchfork writer, Rafael Canton, reiterated Afanasieff by agreeing that Sony "saw the album as too much of a deviation from [Carey's] carefully crafted pop image".
"[10]Canton noted that the album was "a sign of what Carey could do without the interference of executives" and her then-husband and CEO of Sony Music, Tommy Mottola.
[10] Due to the Sony's dissatisfaction with the album and the singles' poor performance on radio,[10] critical reaction in the US was muted.