Mariah Carey almost chose a completely different name for her new album.
Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse is perhaps one of the strangest titles in music history. While recording artists have coughed up some seriously peculiar album names over the years, Carey’s latest offering is definitely a special kind of weird. However, word on the street suggests that the singer almost called the record something a little less odd.
According to Popdust , Mariah Carey revealed the alternative title for The Elusive Chanteuse while promoting her beverage Butterfly. Once she decided against The Art of Letting Go , Carey started playing around with other names.
Congratulations Mariah on a #1 R&B Album with “Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse”. — Team Mariah. pic.twitter.com/7kxN5HKPv4
— Me. I Am Mariah (@MariahCarey) June 4, 2014
“My album was going to be called ‘MCEO,’ but I just went with the Chanteuse thing, ‘cos it was good,” Carey explained during last week’s press conference.
As Bustle points out , MCEO stands for “Mariah Chief Executive Officer.” It’s painfully obvious that the former American Idol judge thinks very highly of her music. Unfortunately for Mariah, other folks don’t feel the same way.
Carey’s new album was a pretty big flop when it arrived on retail shelves last month. Although the record landed at number three on the Billboard Hot 200 chart, it was the weakest debut of her entire career. This led some fans to accuse her handlers of spending too much time focusing on things like Butterfly instead of promoting the songs .
Is there anything poor Mariah can do to turn things around? A few experts recently told Billboard that the singer needs to step out of her comfort zone and try something that’s a little outside of the proverbial box. If this includes working with seasoned hitmakers like Pharrell Williams or Nile Rogers, then so be it.
Former A&R Tom Vickers added:
“Don’t compete with women 20 years younger, but come with more mature versions of what they’re doing that could hit a slightly older demographic. Unfortunately, Mariah is no longer perceived as a role model by females nor a sex object by men. She’s caught in between, which undercuts her relevance.”
At least Mariah Carey has some company in her misery. Take 40 reports that Jennifer Lopez’s latest album AKA only moved approximately 83,000 copies last week. While this doesn’t come close to the numbers she generated during her heyday, it’s still more than the roughly 65,000 copies Carey’s new record sold right out of the gate.
[Image via Tutgen ]