The Demo Tape

The story of how Mariah first got her record deal with CBS Records has been public knowledge since her debut in 1990. She attended a party in late November 1988 at Media Sound in New York City, and Tommy Mottola, who had joined the company that same year, got ahold of her demo tape. However, that same night, record producer Arthur Baker also got a copy of said demo tape. He, after listening to just three songs, also tried to sign Mariah. “When I put the tape on, I heard the first few tracks and they were clearly all going to be hits,” Baker told Rolling Stone. “You could tell straight away she was going to be a star.”

Mariah ended up signing her record deal with CBS Records and the exact contents of the demo tape have been a mystery since that date… until now? Arthur Baker's copy of Mariah's demo tape went up for auction at WaxPoetics.com on December 2, 2025, and ended up selling for $54,050, becoming the highest-selling cassette by a female artist.

According to the listing on the auction's website, the tape contains a total of seven songs, including early versions of five tracks that made it onto Mariah's debut album (including “Someday,” “Alone In Love,” and “All In Your Mind”) as well as two unreleased songs (on of them being “Do You Ever Wonder&rdquo).
According to other reports, the additional songs are “Vision Of Love,” “Vanishing,” “Hypnotized” and “Here We Go Around Again.” However, on an interview with Rolling Stone, Baker mentioned that the tape also includes a few covers as well as songs recorded with Brenda K. Starr.