Mariah Carey is working on her next album and it will arrive on no one else’s schedule but her own. She tells V Magazine that while most artists are inclined to play by the rules and release a single by summertime and premiere their album ahead of the Grammys deadline (usually by the end of September), she’s got no use for their little award show. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. I mean, I have five Grammys. That’s cute,†she says. Carey says she feels slighted by the institution because, although she’s been nominated 34 times, there’s a glaring gap between her wins and which of her work they’ve chosen to reward. (Carey won for Best New Artist and “Vision of Love†in 1991, and then nothing all the way until 2006 with her three wins for The Emancipation of Mimi.) She explains:
“There’s people that have been doing this half the time that have twice as many [Grammys]. I won two Grammys the first year I started, but after that, [the Grammys] are like, ‘We don’t go with the people that are selling a lot of records and are popular; we’re gonna go the opposite way.’ So I got screwed out of certain years. I wasn’t bitter about it. I was just like, okay, well, I guess I’m not standing here barefoot onstage singing and trying to go a certain way. I’m just me.â€
She believes the lack of recognition comes down to being discredited as a songwriter because she doesn’t fit the desired image: “It’s something that I think a lot of people don’t give women enough credit for, unless they are known visually as someone strumming a guitar, or they’re behind a piano most of the time. I also have that diva thing attached to me; I mean, I’m sitting here doing an interview in lingerie. But I was just like, you’re totally gonna understand that this is what I’m gonna wear! Why should I wear something uncomfortable? This is what I like.†Mariah, do your damn thing.