Singer Mariah Carey says new music is coming next year

Mariah Carey has confirmed she has new music coming next year, and the confirmation arrived in the least formal way available. She was stopped in Beverly Hills for a photo with a fan, Jack Banana, who asked about new material, and she said it is set for next year.

That puts a follow-up under two years behind her last album. Here For It All, her 16th studio record, arrived in 2025 and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 7, a strong showing for an artist more than three decades into her recording career and one who spends much of each year attached to a single seasonal song.

A deluxe edition of Here For It All was teased at the time and has not appeared. That is common enough with reissue plans, which get shelved when the schedule moves, and her comment suggests the attention has gone to something new instead.

No title, no format and no date have been given, and a comment to a fan on a street is not a release announcement. What it does establish is that she is working, which had not been publicly confirmed since the last album cycle wound down.

Carey has spent the past year on anniversary work as much as new material, including the 25th anniversary campaign around Glitter, the soundtrack album that has been steadily reappraised since its 2001 release.

Anything she puts out next will be measured against a catalog that returns to the charts every December on its own, and against a listening environment that treats her older material as permanent inventory. The date, when it comes, will be listed with the rest of the pop and rnb-soul releases on the release calendar.