As Mariah Carey recovers from a nervous breakdown, the pop singer’s Virgin Records label said Thursday it had delayed the release of her new album, the first under a lucrative new contract.
Carey, 31, was released from a Connecticut hospital Tuesday, having received a two-week treatment for what her publicists described as an “emotional and physical breakdown” as a busy schedule led to bizarre public behavior. She is resting with her mother at an undisclosed location.
In a statement, Virgin said Carey’s new album, “Glitter,” would be released Sept. 11, instead of Aug. 21. The album doubles as the soundtrack for a movie of the same name, which marks her acting debut. The movie, from Twentieth Century Fox, was recently pushed back by three weeks to Sept. 21.
“Mariah is looking forward to being able to participate in both her album and movie projects and we are hopeful that this new soundtrack release date will allow her to do so,” Virgin Music Group vice chairman Nancy Berry said in the statement.
“She has been making great recovery progress, and continues to grow stronger every day. Virgin Music Worldwide continues to give its absolute commitment and support to Mariah on every level.”
Virgin, a unit of Britain’s EMI Music Group Plc., signed Carey to a rich contract in April after the singer had endured an increasingly unhappy stint at Sony Corp’s Sony Music Entertainment, which is run by her ex-husband, Tommy Mottola. Terms were not revealed, but Us Weekly magazine recently said the contract was worth $118 million for five albums, a pricey investment for Virgin.
Carey has sold 150 million albums and singles worldwide throughout her 11-year career, according to Virgin. But music observers say Carey is at an awkward phase, wondering whether to compete with teen stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera or take a more adult stance like labelmate Janet Jackson.
“Loverboy,” the first single from “Glitter,” was virtually ignored by radio stations upon its June release and looked set to suffer a brief existence in the lower reaches of the charts until Virgin made it available at retail, sharply discounted. It accordingly shot as high as No. 2 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 singles chart, which is calculated by retail sales and radio airplay.
The semiautobiographical “Glitter” movie stars Carey as an aspiring young singer who dates a DJ to help her break into the business. Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Entertainment Group Inc.