It was rumored that Mimi was going to pull a “Beyonce'” by releasing her new album without any promotion and out of the blue, but it seems the “Emancipated” singer has had a change of heart.
Though [Mariah] never explicitly said the album would be a surprise release, subsequent interviews with Jermaine Dupri and two sources familiar with the album’s planned distribution confirmed that a digital-first, everything-at-once strategy was in the works. Dupri even went so far as to compare the plan to the way Beyoncé let the fans democratize the typical album rollout. “The challenge with Mariah has always been if I like one record and she likes another, you can never pick a single that satisfies everybody,” he said. “If you just did what Beyoncé did, she just gave you 17 singles and you picked which record you like.”
But Def Jam, Carey’s label, is now telling a different story. According to Laura Swanson, the label’s exec VP-media, the album will, in fact, be preceded by a traditional strategy leading up to a “late May” simultaneous digital/physical street date. “Mariah will announce the date and title in advance of the on-sale date,” she said, noting that the cover and confirmed tracklist will all be included.
I thought Mariah would have a change of minds.
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