Mariah Carey would probably never want you to compare her to another musical mega-star, but the diva is making that hard to do with her planned rollout for her 14th studio album. Yep, she's looking to pull a "Beyoncé" and release the record all at once, as a surprise.
Carey is featured in the cover story in the latest edition of Billboard magazine, and revealed that all the information on her new album (previously titled The Art Of Letting Go) and the music itself will all drop at once as a surprise.
Originally due out on sometime last year, the 14th Carey album was then bumped to May 6 -- a date she originally announced when she dropped the Valentine's Day single "You're Mine (Eternal)." But since Feb. 14, the album has been mysteriously dropped from Island's list of upcoming releases, and now the casual music fan knows why... Carey is looking for the element of surprise.
According to Billboard, she's doing this to save face, in a way. Her last effort, 2009's Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel has only sold 549,000 copies to date and had just one top 10 Billboard single, a relative failure for a familiar top-performing artist like Carey.
Even the few singles she's released over the last year -- "#Beautiful," "The Art Of Letting Go" and "You're Mine (Eternal)" -- failed to really resonate with fans. (Though "#Beautiful" did fare better than the other two singles...)
Other details about the album emerged in the cover story teaser, including the fact that the sound will blend together both ballads and bangers and will include a guest spot from a yet-to-be-named big shot artist.
