Charmbracelet was the Mariah Carey album released in 2002 on MonarC Entertainment and Island Records. It arrived in North America on December 3, 2002, as her ninth studio album and her first major release after the difficult Glitter period.
The album marked Carey’s move into a new phase of her career. After leaving Virgin Records, she signed with Island Records and worked through her own vanity label, MonarC Entertainment. The name reflected her well-known fascination with butterflies, a recurring image in her music and visual identity. MonarC and Island Def Jam are therefore closely connected, rather than competing labels in this question.
Charmbracelet blended contemporary R&B with pop, soul, gospel touches and softer hip-hop production. Carey described love as a central theme, while several songs drew on personal reflection and recovery. Collaborators included Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Just Blaze, Randy Jackson and Bryan-Michael Cox. Listeners sometimes confuse the album with Butterfly or Rainbow, but those were earlier Columbia-era releases; Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel came much later, in 2009.