The album was supposed to be released in late 2007, but Carey spoke about reason the album got delayed: "You can't really put records out in December if you want the whole world to have a chance to actually hear it, my fans all over the world are very important to me", adding that she also wants to put out a pair of singles before the album drops. In a separate interview, she elaborated further: "This happened to me with "The Emancipation of Mimi", I started writing more songs, I was like okay let me get these done, then I wrote four more songs and you know how it goes, so now I'm like 22 songs in and clearly I have to cut some of those down". It was then reported that the album will be released in February 2008. However, the release was later pushed back yet again to April 2008.