Mariah Carey Playfully Shades Fans’ References to Her ‘Comeback Album’

Mariah Carey wants her fans to know that she’s never gone away. 20 years after “The Emancipation of Mimi” dropped, the “We Belong Together” singer told People that it wasn’t a “comeback album” as fans believed.

“At the time, it annoyed me when they called it a comeback album. But now I’m just like, ‘Oh yeah, my comeback album.’ It’s like, how many comebacks do I have to have?” Carey said.

She admitted, “But not everybody knows that album. So people can discover various songs and kind of get to know the feeling of that album.”

Carey Was Proud of ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’

Carey told Harper’s Bazaar on April 11 that while “Charmbracelet” holds a special place in her heart, she’s especially fond of “The Emancipation of Mimi.”

“When we got into making ‘The Emancipation of Mimi,’ it was just like a breath of fresh air. It really was good,” she said.

The “Joy Ride” singer told the publication, “[This album really] seems to span across different age groups, even if fans were super young when it came out.”

She reflected, “It was really about breaking free of things that I would have done in the past, whether it was wearing the Dsquared2 dress from the ‘It’s Like That’ video or the orange Roberto Cavalli [cutout] dress to [the VH1 Save the Music Benefit].”

Carey added, “There was the Vera Wang wedding dress for the ‘We Belong Together’ video too. Everything I was wearing was all different, but also [at the same time] all fun.”

Carey is Looking Toward the Future With Her Music

After Carey was nominated as a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee, she told AP that as a pop star, she was honored to be on the roster.

“I don’t really know if genre matters. I feel like people are more open to all different genres, much more than they were, you know? But I feel like a rock star sometimes,” she said

On whether she would ever showcase her grunge side, Carey said to AP, “I mean, I really want to, but I want to do videos, and I have just so many ideas for that. I don’t think I’ll be able to pull it together by the summer (before the Rock Hall ceremony), but maybe, maybe I’ll release a few songs from it.”

Carey, whose last studio album “Caution” was released in 2018, teased AP, “I’m not supposed to talk about it. … But I’m working on something. We won’t say what it is, but something new.”